Wird geladen
Informationen über das Buch
Silent Spring
Von Mariner Books
Buchaktionen
Mit Lesen beginnenBeschreibung
Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring was first published in three serialized excerpts in the New Yorker in June of 1962. The book appeared in September of that year and the outcry that followed its publication forced the banning of DDT and spurred revolutionary changes in the laws affecting our air, land, and water. Carson’s passionate concern for the future of our planet reverberated powerfully throughout the world, and her eloquent book was instrumental in launching the environmental movement. It is without question one of the landmark books of the twentieth century.
Buchaktionen
Mit Lesen beginnenInformationen über das Buch
Silent Spring
Von Mariner Books
Beschreibung
Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring was first published in three serialized excerpts in the New Yorker in June of 1962. The book appeared in September of that year and the outcry that followed its publication forced the banning of DDT and spurred revolutionary changes in the laws affecting our air, land, and water. Carson’s passionate concern for the future of our planet reverberated powerfully throughout the world, and her eloquent book was instrumental in launching the environmental movement. It is without question one of the landmark books of the twentieth century.
Rezensionen
Five stars for what it did in creating alarm about pesticides and indiscriminate spraying. 31/2 stars for the actual read. A dry read especially when dealing with the chemical breakdowns and dealing with those aspects of this story. I can see how this book opened the eyes of many people not familiar with what was happening with pesticides and farming, Many interesting facts in this book.
A 1962 expose on the long-term costs of humanity’s abuse of the environment. Rachel Carson worked for the U.S. Department of Agriculture and she saw firsthand what pesticides, herbicides, and invasive insects were doing to animals, humans, and the ecosystem.This book was also for the book club I run for zoo volunteers. We had a very good discussion about it. The statistics and anecdotes were very shocking, though 57 years later none of us were exactly sure where society stands on any of the specific cases Carson discussed. Many of our current environmental problems are ones she could not have imagined – there’s no way to know what she would have thought of GMOs or organic panic or plastic vs. paper straws. Some of the solutions Carson proposed seem shockingly nearsighted to me, such as introducing invasive non-native predators to areas with invasive non-native pests. Noooooo! But it was still fascinating to read the origin of so much of our current knowledge about the environment.
Because all of the quotes I’ve read from Silent Spring have been emotional appeals, I was worried the book would be all poetic descriptions, poorly grounded in science. Instead I found that, as the introduction claimed, Rachel Carson not only had a “lyrical, poetic voice” but also offered sound “scientific expertise” and an impressive “synthesis of wide-ranging material”.The introduction really helped place the book for me, in a period before environmentalism; after the cold war, when unpatriotic suggestions that we couldn’t control nature were frowned upon; and during a time when radiation was a recently recognized danger. Reading through the book without the introduction, Carson’s repetitive comparisons of chemical sprays to radiation might have become annoying. However, as the introduction pointed out, this was a rather clever move on her part given public consciousness of radiation as a real danger. The afterward also did a really good job of placing the book in relation to the following environmental movement and current ecological concerns. If you’re going to read Silent Spring, I would strongly recommend the 40th anniversary edition for these nice contextual additions.As anticipated, the writing was often very beautiful. Despite my half-dozen or so biology classes, I’ve never found the inner workings of the cell half as beautiful as I did reading Rachel Carson’s descriptions. At other times, her writing did become over the top with references to “the chemical death rain”, but her descriptions of the results of these chemicals made the hyperbole seem warranted. In fact, finishing this book I actually felt a profound sense of relief that we don’t live in a world without birds, because of the damages these chemicals caused.My only complaint with this read was that it quickly became repetitive. Although Rachel Carson’s point was novel at the time and people may have required more convincing, I was a convert pretty early on. In part because of the repetitiveness, I found the book informative but never really engaging. With a really great book, there’s always that point where you’ve really gotten into it and don’t want to put it down, except maybe to sleep…if you absolutely have to. With this read, I just never got to that point. Instead I felt like I had to force myself back into it whenever I took a break. Despite not getting really sucked in, this was an interesting and informative read which I think provides a great introduction for anyone interested in the history of the environmentalist movement.
My first read of this classic. It wasn't at all what I had expected. Based on environmental books that are popular today, I had expected lyrical descriptive nature writing. No. There's a little of that, but this is more like a compendium of dozens and dozens of investigative reports like you might find in the NY Times or Washington Post. All about chemical poisoning. That can be tedious, but it is also scary how regulation fails and can be suborned. I should probably start eating organic vegetables. Carson advocates strongly for importing insects to combat invasive insects, and she touts as a success when one introduced species is firmly established as a bulwark against an invasive species. As a non-expert, I'm not sure this perspective stands up well to time. Carson makes a good case for paying attention to the bigger picture, and not just going with the flow.
I'm glad I read this book -- as Al Gore said in his intro to this edition, it really kicked off the environmental movement. I was impressed by Rachel Carson's writing ability and the way she created effective analogies to help a non-scientist like me understand how toxic insecticides threaten our world and our health. "Silent Spring" was also a scary book to read -- although chemicals like DDT have been banned, I couldn't help thinking about all the chemical and substances in modern life that could still be contaminating our water, earth, and sky and hurting us. And although the more biological solutions that Carson suggested made sense, it also made me wonder about the possible dangers of "playing God" and changing our natural environment. But a powerful, pursuasive read -- I can understand why it was so effective when it came out in 1962.
Reading this book so long after it was published makes clear that we have won little in the battle against the poisoning of the world. I come away from this book realizing that we need a new strategy in order to stop the living world from being destroyed by corporations.
In 1962, Carson argues that the wide use of spraying chemicals over crops and regions has far-reaching consequences beyond controlling the insects they are meant to kill. The spraying causes the deaths of birds, fish, and other wildlife, and does not have the intended result of eradicating the harmful insects, but instead seems to be only a temporary fix.This book is on some of the lists of most influential books of the 20th century, and essentially backed up the eventual banning of DDT, though Carson herself does not argue that insecticides should not be used, merely that their use needs to be done carefully, specifically (ie., killing the intended insect without upsetting the ecosystem more than necessary), and with full understanding of the dangers of the chemicals. While I am not sorry to have read it and I understand that it was an important work for its time, much of the specifics that Carson focuses on are dry and not as relevant today as they were forty years ago. Her chapters on cancer and genetics in particular have not aged well as our understanding of both have developed significantly. Since the book began as a series of articles written the New Yorker, the chapters are extremely topical and somewhat repetitive. In the end, I was rather bored and wishing for a Cliffs Notes version.
the first real book about protecting the environment, Rachel goes into what she and others did to remove poison from the earth and our food. she is one of the big reasons why DDT was banned. Anybody who cares about the earth and what you eat should read this
As we pass another vernal equinox in March of 2013, my mind wandered back to 1965 when I read Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring. This classic work, which became, in the words of Peter Matthiessen, “The cornerstone of the new environmentalism” has writing as beautiful as a perfect Spring day.Carson was born in 1907 and served many years as a marine biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Three previous works on the environment of the oceans firmly fixed her as an eminent writer on nature. She died less than two years after the publication of Silent Spring. Her work set in motion profound changes in environmental laws to protect the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the land on which we live and grow our food.Carson’s study focuses on the indiscriminate use of the pesticide DDT, which was banned shortly after the book caused a world-wide sensation. Predictably, much opposition arose from opponents of the idea we need to protect our environment. Detractors in government and the then multimillion dollar chemical industry attacked Carson, because – as Linda Lear who wrote a biography of Carson wrote in the Introduction to my anniversary edition – they “were not about to allow a former government editor, a female scientist without a Ph.D. or an institutional affiliation, known only for her lyrical books on the sea, to undermine public confidence in its products or to question its integrity” (xvii). Those chemical companies now have profits in the billions. Lear continues, when this book “caught the attention of President Kennedy, federal and state investigations were launched into the validity of Carson’s claims” (xvii). The chapters then focus on various parts of the environment, the chemicals which were sprayed or dumped into each one, and the effects these chemicals had. The title “Silent Spring” reflects numerous reports of the death of thousands of song birds and other creatures following widespread use of DDT and other pesticides. I remember as a child watching trucks drive down our street spraying a white fog to kill mosquitoes. Sometimes the city issued warnings and other times not. My mother always made my sisters and me stay inside “until the smell went away.” However, I remember seeing children running and playing in the fog.Carson writes about the hundreds of new chemicals which find their way into use every year. In the mid-40s alone “over 200 chemicals were invented to kill insects, weeds, rodents, and other organisms described in the modern vernacular as ‘pests’” (7). Carson asks, “Can anyone believe it is possible to lay down such a barrage of poisons on the surface of the earth without making it unfit for all life? They should not be called ‘insecticides,’ but ‘biocides’” (8). Yet today, attacks continue on the EPA. A most worthy read for anyone concerned about the environment. 5 stars--Jim, 2/15/13
This is one of those books I've been meaning to read for a while. It's written in an accessible, yet authoritative style and sets out the stark truths about the dangers of putting human-made chemicals which deal out death into the environment. It's obvious why this was such an influential work when it came out.I got a bit tired around the mid-way mark of reading about chemically-induced disasters and found myself skimming over some of those middle chapters, but I'm glad to have finally got around to reading the book.
Paperback edition with an introduction by former Vice President Al Gore. An incredibly powerful, landmark book..
I first read this book around 35 or 40 years ago. I will say there is a good reason it is a classic. A pivotal book that was treated unkindly in the 60's but has endured all these years. It now seems to be the most oft quoted book regarding the environment and the birth of the environmental movement.
I can't say I read this book, because I didn't finish it. I discovered my inner environmentalist in elementary school, and when I learned about Rachel Carson, I was enamored. Perhaps I was simply too young for this book, and maybe my complaint about it only serves to illustrate the fact: it was boring. To give it a fair review, I should at least finish it, but I wanted to mark it down because I remember it so vividly. It was a disappointment.
One of the best known environmental classics, a work that eventually led to the banning of DDT in the United States. Ms. Carson painstakingly details all of the evidence of the dangers of DDT, which had until that time been trumpeted as totally safe to humans. Written in easy prose, the book shouldn't be too technical for the lay reader.
I had been meaning to read Silent Spring for years, but I never got around to it. I really don’t know why. When I saw it on the shelf in a closing Border’s store, I grabbed it. Rachel Carson wrote this book back in 1962, but her message is sadly still relevant and important today. I knew that pesticides and herbicides were bad. I am a novice gardener who does her best to avoid the stuff. I guess it never really struck home to me as to HOW bad they really were and still are. The overuse and abuse of pesticides and herbicides did not stop with the publication of this book, but it allowed people to become more aware of what was happening. The sad thing is that many people of my generation and even my parent’s don’t really understand the disastrous affects of these chemicals and still use them in their gardens. Gardens in which they grow food that they feed their children.If you haven’t read this book yet and you are concerned about the environment and the food that you eat, please read this book. It will be an eye opening experience. It will probably make you very uncomfortable. It will probably make you think twice before you eat things like potatoes and apples. It will probably make you think twice before you apply chemicals to your gardens or your lawn especially if you have children or pets.
Given my interests and the timing of this book being published, one would think I would have read this book decades ago. It was certainly well known already when I was deep into my higher education pursuits so many years ago. I had always assumed it would be rather dated and much overshadowed by more modern research, if I were to read it now. Plus, I don't recall the last time the title of this book and DDT were not directly connected in comments I read about one or the other of the two. As it turns out, the book is startling in its applicability to today's world, especially one in which environmental protections are exuberantly being stripped off like so many layers of skin on a human being by a stunningly misguided government administration. (Can someone please pass a law requiring all candidates be able to read?) True, DDT is not much in the news now, but this book speaks directly and fluently about the very same issues that face the world now as to those it faced back in 1962. I have read other books that were more adept at stating their case about the intricacies of trying to manage our environment, but this book does a fine job of it and is well worth the read even now.
This is an amazing book: it really makes you think about what you can do to sustain our natural resources.
Alarming. It may have been written awhile ago now but I don't think you can say that things have abruptly changed for the better in the meantime...
Having grown up in the 80s I think it is very hard to understand this book. By then the environment movement had become accepted to the point of being assumed. It is eye-opening to try to understand the context of this book and the casual disregard for what today seems like obvious protections and cautions.Although the information in the book is dated, it is well worth the read to understand the history of the environmental movement, and what could be if environmentalism is minimized or ignored.
A wonderful book that changed my life in the early '70s. I reread it recently and it's somewhat dated because it's about the damage done to birds by DDT. DDT has been long banned in the US, largely because of this book.
Despite of what Rush Limbaugh says, this book is a classic in so far as bringing environmental pollution to the public discourse. I never forgot about the dieing robins in Minneapolis.
The original environmental classic, Silent Spring is meticulously researched and written in plain language. It is a little dry and a little uninteresting if you know the ending (no spoilers here, but it's been old news for a few decades now). In fact, Silent Spring's template has been so often copied that its formula will be painfully familiar to modern readers.
As important and relevant now as it was when it was written 50 years ago. Being a composting, recycling, organic gardener who has volunteered with wildlife organizations for years, I thought I was reasonably environmentally savvy, but Carson's work still managed to educate and dismay me. Both eloquent and remarkably succinct given the complicated chemical nature of the subject. It is amazing how much of her hotly contested "theories" have proven correct over the past five years. My walks through the local home and garden aisles are forever changed. A highly recommended book for all--it should be mandatory reading at high school level.
As expected, the science is a bit dated since this book is now ~50 years old. However, Carson's main points are still valid and powerfully put. She helped create the environmental movement which many now take for granted. While I am pleased to know that some of the threats she described have been reversed or avoided (such as the recovery of many bird & fish species from the effects of DDT), I was still appalled by the hazards that pesticides & herbicides posed then & probably still do. I was also left with a strong feeling that the USDA and other governmental agencies of the 1940-60 period were rife with corruption -- I don't know if this was ever investigated but I sure hope that there is more oversight on these agencies now!Carson does an amazing job of giving explanations of some basic biology as well as the plentiful descriptions of case studies. Well worth reading.
This book has taken me some time to read, but I am glad that I finished it. Carson made some exceptional and valid points regarding the chemicals that were being sprayed across the US, especially for the time period that she published this book. Because of her the use of DDT was scrutinized and banned - at least in most countries. I think we still have work to do on the amount of pollutants that we put into the environment, but with people like Rachel Carson and others exposing the harmful effects, hopefully things will improve even more.
Extremely powerful 'pop-sci' biology text (or rant) about the dangers of pesticides. As relevant now as it was when it was first published 50 years ago - although one hopes there have been several significant lesson learnt in the meantime. TBC
This was such an interesting book - mankind tends to go all gung-ho into the latest thing (in this book, insecticides and herbicides) without fully understanding the implications or consequences of such actions. Not only does the thesis still resonate today, it teaches us a lot about the human psyche and how we refuse to see the havoc we wreak on our environment.
This is a truly awesome book that had significant impact on policy in the US regarding the use of pesticides. This was well researched and well written. The points off the book are clear and accurate. The data are not to be ignored.
Anniversary addition of the classic if controversial work. This includes a new introduction with a helpful brief biography of Rachel Carson and an afterword by Edward O. Wilson.
Picked up this book having heard it was a landmark piece of literature in the ecological movement. Worth a read, but it's a sad book and in some chapters the author does labour the point a bit. In context of time written, a well-researched and quite frankly bold piece of work! Fact that it is still referred to 40 years on proves its significance.