Silent Spring, Rachel Carson, Houghton Mifflin, 1962, 262 pp
Summary from Goodreads: 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.
My Review:
For much of my adult life, I have pondered the relationship between commerce and art. This book caused me to ponder the intersection of commerce and science.
I revere scientists who study life here on earth and increase our understanding of the physical properties of life and the universe. I understand that someone has to turn all that into systems and products that make the knowledge available to the rest of us. I abhor the impulses of greed that end up turning the knowledge into destruction. Silent Spring is another important book that shows us how that happened in the 1940s and 1950s.
This was a tough read. Not because of the writing because Rachel Carson was one of the best science writers ever. She made biology and ecology comprehensible to regular people. No, it was emotionally tough, reading about all the destruction done to the natural world through the use of poisonous pesticides and herbicides.
If you want to know about and understand how interconnected the natural world is, read this book. Just take it a chapter a day. That is how I made it through.
She also has some amazing insights about cancer and how these poisons plus atomic radiation have played their parts in the proliferation of that disease. I have nothing against cancer research but I couldn't help thinking that more than a cure for cancer, we need a cure for our planet.
Couldn't some of our bright young people figure out how to make healing the earth profitable? Actually I think many of them are working on it.
(Silent Spring is available in paperback by order from Once Upon A Time Bookstore.)
I read this book so many years ago that one would think that the emotional impact of it would have been blunted, but reading your review just now brought it all back. This book really was a world-changer. There may well be species alive today, especially birds, that still exist because Rachel Carson wrote a book. Imagine that! I fully agree with your sentiment that "we need a cure for our planet."
ReplyDeleteThanks Dorothy. The book was always on my parents' shelves when I was still at home and I snagged it as we were cleaning out my mom's house after she passed. Now I wish I could discuss it with them. Rachel Carson has become one of my sheroes. I also loved The Sea Around Us.
DeleteI knew of this book via a coworker who told me about a book he had been reading and told me what it was about. I haven't read it, but through his words I understood the profound implication of publishing such research. In our modern lives, it isn't often that a work such as this brings about change; thus, Silent Spring is the more valuable for it.
ReplyDeleteYes! Though I usually read fiction, I had to read this from my 1962 list because it is part of the story of our country and our world.
DeleteSuch a famous work and the author a hero long, long after -- even today. I have watched various PBS kinds of shows on Rachael Carson and admired her greatly but have always been a bit scared to read Silent Spring for the reasons you state. Poison and destruction and the obliteration of nature from mankind. It rips at the heart and mind. But I'm sure, read it must be! Nice review.
ReplyDeleteThanks Susan! In these days of climate change and all, I found it so relevant. Even Margaret Atwood did a piece on it on the 50th anniversary of the book: http://www.theguardian.com/books/2012/dec/07/why-rachel-carson-is-a-saint
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