Silent Spring

Silent Spring by Rachel Carson
Houghton Mifflin - September 27, 1962
367 pages (approx.)

I apologize for the "approximate" page numbers. I could not get a specific number for the first edition, so I relied on the number that was in the copy I got from the library. I'm also going to apologize for the picture, another issue I had with first editions. This is what happens when I review an older book. Anyway, let's get right to the plot. Carson believes that uncontrolled and unexamined pesticide use is killing and harming much more than the intended targets of weeds and insects, going so far as to damage whole ecosystems. The title is suggesting a spring when so many birds have died that there is no singing.

Let me get straight to the point: this book was absolutely wonderful. Even when we are coming into the fiftieth anniversary of the publication of Silent Spring and the pesticides mentioned have long been stopped in the United States, the book is filled with insight and information. Carson does not simply wag her finger at those who use DDT, dieldrin, aldrin, endrin, toxaphene, and heptachlor. She instead suggests better methods that I found extremely interesting, from introducing natural predators of invasive species to the sterilization of pests. Stories of birds, cats, and small children dying as a result of these chemicals the government brushed off as "harmless" are like a car crash: horrifying and yet terribly intoxifying. Rachel Carson is not a hysterical woman; she set out to make the world a better place.

Grade: A