Published on the fiftieth anniversary of her
seminal book, Silent Spring, here is an indelible
new portrait of Rachel Carson, founder of the
environmental movement She loved the ocean and
wrote three books about its mysteries, including the
international bestseller The Sea Around Us. But
it was with her fourth book, Silent Spring, that
this unassuming biologist transformed our relationship
with the natural world. Rachel Carson began work on
Silent Spring in the late 1950s, when a dizzying
array of synthetic pesticides had come into use. Leading
this chemical onslaught was the insecticide DDT, whose
inventor had won a Nobel Prize for its discovery.
Effective against crop pests as well as insects that
transmitted human diseases such as typhus and malaria,
DDT had at first appeared safe. But as its use expanded,
alarming reports surfaced of collateral damage to fish,
birds, and other wildlife. Silent Spring was a
chilling indictment of DDT and its effects, which were
lasting, widespread, and lethal. Published in 1962,
Silent Spring shocked the public and forced the
government to take action-despite a withering attack on
Carson from the chemicals industry. The book awakened
the world to the heedless contamination of the
environment and eventually led to the establishment of
the EPA and to the banning of DDT and a host of related
pesticides. By drawing frightening parallels between
dangerous chemicals and the then-pervasive fallout from
nuclear testing, Carson opened a fault line between the
gentle ideal of conservation and the more urgent new
concept of environmentalism. Elegantly written and
meticulously researched, On a Farther Shore
reveals a shy yet passionate woman more at home in the
natural world than in the literary one that embraced
her. William Souder also writes sensitively of Carson's
romantic friendship with Dorothy Freeman, and of her
death from cancer in 1964. This extraordinary new
biography captures the essence of one of the great
reformers of the twentieth century. A New York
Times Notable Book of 2012 “A suspenseful tale of
the literary life…utterly inspiring.” —San Francisco
Chronicle “Captivating…Souder writes vividly and
with great empathy for his subject and her cause.”
—New York Times Book Review “A delightful,
fascinating, engrossing read about some of the most
important insights of modern science. You’ll find
yourself thinking about Carson whenever you take a walk
in the woods.” —Slate.com
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