Silent Spring

No single event played a greater role in the birth of modern environmentalism than the publication of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring and its assault on insecticides. The documents collected by Thomas Dunlap trace shifting attitudes toward DDT and pesticides in general through a variety of sources: excerpts from scientific studies and government reports, advertisements from industry journals, articles from popular magazines, and the famous “Fable for Tomorrow” from Silent Spring.

Rachel Carson worked at the US Bureau of Fisheries for 15 years while developing a writing career at the same time. Her first book, 1941's Under the Sea Wind, became a best seller, but it was eclipsed by 1962's Silent Spring, one of the first books ever to highlight environmentalist issues. Carson focuses on the negative, widespread, and long-lasting effects of human activity on the environment, and illustrates this through one case study - the use of chemical pesticides in agriculture. Throughout Silent Spring, Carson argues against man's short-termist interfering in the natural world and highlights the potential dangers for both humanity and wildlife.