Silent Spring
by: Rachel Carson
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Amazon.com Review:
Silent Spring, released in 1962, offered the first shatteringlook at widespread ecological degradation and touched off an environmentalawareness that still exists. Rachel Carson's book focused on the poisons frominsecticides, weed killers, and other common products as well as the use ofsprays in agriculture, a practice that led to dangerous chemicals to thefood source. Carson argued that those chemicals were more dangerous thanradiation and that for the first time in history, humans were exposed tochemicals that stayed in their systems from birth to death. Presented withthorough documentation, the book opened more than a few eyes about thedangers of the modern world and stands today as a landmark work.
Product Description:
First published by Houghton Mifflin in 1962, Silent Spring alerted a large audience to the environmental and human dangers of indiscriminate use of pesticides, spurring revolutionary changes in the laws affecting our air, land, and water. "Silent Spring became a runaway bestseller, with international reverberations . . . [It is] well crafted, fearless and succinct . . . Even if she had not inspired a generation of activists, Carson would prevail as one of the greatest nature writers in American letters" (Peter Matthiessen, for Time"s 100 Most Influential People of the Century). This fortieth anniversary edition celebrates Rachel Carson"s watershed book with a new introduction by the author and activist Terry Tempest Williams and a new afterword by the acclaimed Rachel Carson biographer Linda Lear, who tells the story of Carson"s courageous defense of her truths in the face of ruthless assault from the chemical industry in the year following the publication of Silent Spring and before her untimely death in 1964.
Silent Spring, released in 1962, offered the first shatteringlook at widespread ecological degradation and touched off an environmentalawareness that still exists. Rachel Carson's book focused on the poisons frominsecticides, weed killers, and other common products as well as the use ofsprays in agriculture, a practice that led to dangerous chemicals to thefood source. Carson argued that those chemicals were more dangerous thanradiation and that for the first time in history, humans were exposed tochemicals that stayed in their systems from birth to death. Presented withthorough documentation, the book opened more than a few eyes about thedangers of the modern world and stands today as a landmark work.
Product Description:
First published by Houghton Mifflin in 1962, Silent Spring alerted a large audience to the environmental and human dangers of indiscriminate use of pesticides, spurring revolutionary changes in the laws affecting our air, land, and water. "Silent Spring became a runaway bestseller, with international reverberations . . . [It is] well crafted, fearless and succinct . . . Even if she had not inspired a generation of activists, Carson would prevail as one of the greatest nature writers in American letters" (Peter Matthiessen, for Time"s 100 Most Influential People of the Century). This fortieth anniversary edition celebrates Rachel Carson"s watershed book with a new introduction by the author and activist Terry Tempest Williams and a new afterword by the acclaimed Rachel Carson biographer Linda Lear, who tells the story of Carson"s courageous defense of her truths in the face of ruthless assault from the chemical industry in the year following the publication of Silent Spring and before her untimely death in 1964.
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Customer Reviews
Average Rating:
Rating: 
- review on delivery & condition only
I can only give a review on the delivery, which was fast. Plus the condition of the book, which was exactly as they stated on the description of it. It was purchased for my daughter for her reading list for high school, so I have not read it. But I'd do business with this seller again.
Rating: - Environmental token
Know someone who is a fan of the environmental movement?This is the book where it all began, not to mention, written by a marvelous woman.Great buy.
Rating: 
- This book has killed millions of people
Cherry-picking facts to present misleading statistical pictures outside of their context is reprehensible at best. Science is not about agendas; it's about getting after the truth. Ideas have consequences, as do dangerous, ideological movements supported by faulty and incomplete data.
Carson's argument that DDT resulted in a spike of cancer deaths among children may have caught the attention of the US government, but she ignored that child cancer deaths only increased relative to other ... Read More
Rating: - We Owe It to Ourselves
This reviewer remembers, as a small child, watching crop duster planes spraying the farm fields eastern Long Island, NY.That would have been in the early 50s.10 years later, Rachel Carson wrote "Silent Spring". It was those very same crop-spraying activities that were the focus of her concern.All those pesticides, herbicides, insecticides and defoliants extract an enormous long term toll from our environment.Miss Carson's contention, hammered home again and again, is that so many elements ... Read More
Rating: 
- Silent Spring?
In 1962, while still in college, I received, as a member of the Book-of-the-Month Club, Rachel Carson's Silent Spring (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin Company, c. 1962). It opened my eyes to something I'd never considered:environmental destruction. It made me, rather abruptly, an environmentalist!I decided to re-read SilentSpring, and coincidentally noticed a remark in a magazine saying no one actually reads Carson's book these days.In part this is due to the fact that many of her "scientific" assertions ... Read More
- review on delivery & condition onlyI can only give a review on the delivery, which was fast. Plus the condition of the book, which was exactly as they stated on the description of it. It was purchased for my daughter for her reading list for high school, so I have not read it. But I'd do business with this seller again.
- Environmental tokenKnow someone who is a fan of the environmental movement?This is the book where it all began, not to mention, written by a marvelous woman.Great buy.
- This book has killed millions of peopleCherry-picking facts to present misleading statistical pictures outside of their context is reprehensible at best. Science is not about agendas; it's about getting after the truth. Ideas have consequences, as do dangerous, ideological movements supported by faulty and incomplete data.
Carson's argument that DDT resulted in a spike of cancer deaths among children may have caught the attention of the US government, but she ignored that child cancer deaths only increased relative to other ... Read More
- We Owe It to OurselvesThis reviewer remembers, as a small child, watching crop duster planes spraying the farm fields eastern Long Island, NY.That would have been in the early 50s.10 years later, Rachel Carson wrote "Silent Spring". It was those very same crop-spraying activities that were the focus of her concern.All those pesticides, herbicides, insecticides and defoliants extract an enormous long term toll from our environment.Miss Carson's contention, hammered home again and again, is that so many elements ... Read More
- Silent Spring?In 1962, while still in college, I received, as a member of the Book-of-the-Month Club, Rachel Carson's Silent Spring (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin Company, c. 1962). It opened my eyes to something I'd never considered:environmental destruction. It made me, rather abruptly, an environmentalist!I decided to re-read SilentSpring, and coincidentally noticed a remark in a magazine saying no one actually reads Carson's book these days.In part this is due to the fact that many of her "scientific" assertions ... Read More
