Carson's Silent Spring

Silent Spring is a watershed moment in the history of environmentalism. Credited with launching the modern environmental movement, it provoked the ban on DDT in the US ten years later and it has been an inspiration for feminist health movements. Yet the shift in public health paradigms that Silent Spring enjoined is possibly its most important legacy; one that is foundational for changing the ways in which we think about the health effects of the chemical immersion that constitutes modern life. In synthesizing a jumble of scientific and medical information into a coherent, readable argument about health and environment, Carson successfully challenged major chemical industries and the prevailing paradigm that modern societies could and should exert mastery over nature at any cost. This book provides an in-depth analysis and contextualisation of Silent Spring. It also surveys the lasting impact the text has had on the environmentalist movement in the last fifty years. Carson's Silent Spring is the first book to provide a full overview of what is a seminal work in the history of environmentalism.