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Overview
Silent Spring, by writer and marine biologist Rachel Carson, is a nonfiction work first published in The New Yorker and then as a book in 1962
. This revolutionary book, which Carson wrote with the general public as her audience rather than fellow scientists, is generally credited with launching the modern environmental movement. In it, Carson precisely chronicles the dangers of chemical pesticides as she synthesizes a wide range of research to demonstrate that people were poisoning the environment and themselves, even while those with a vested interest in the chemical industry argued otherwise. Carson’s eloquent defense of the natural world and blistering critique of humanity’s overreliance on toxic pesticides led to the U.S. banning of the worst offender, DDT, in 1972, eight years after Carson succumbed to cancer in 1964. Silent Spring brought the subject of environmentalism into the public conscience and galvanized it into a political movement. It remains a cornerstone eco-literature text.Explore the full book summary & analysis, the main ideas, and explanations of important quotes from Silent Spring.
