“When Silent Spring was published in 1962, author Rachel Carson was subjected to vicious personal assaults that had nothing do with the science or the merits of pesticide use. By now it has sold more than two million copies and has been translated into more than twenty languages.”Ĭarson was subject to backlash and attacks from the pesticide industry, which conspired to discredit her. A 2012 article in Yale Environment 360 titled “Fifty Years After Silent Spring, Attacks on Science Continue” observed: Silent Spring sold more than 100,000 copies in the first week and was on the bestseller list by Christmas. “The public’s growing awareness of the dangers of chemicals created a natural readership for Silent Spring, serialized in The New Yorker beginning June 16, 1962, and published as a book on September 27, 1962. It is recognized as the environmental text that changed the world.”įrom this site’s biography of Rachel Carson: Rachel Carson’s official website recognizes how prescient she was: “ Silent Spring inspired the modern environmental movement, which began in earnest a decade later. It lays out a disturbing view of the damage these chemicals can cause to birds, bees, wildlife, and plant life.

Written with grace as well as passion, it’s an indictment of the pesticide industry that arose in the late 1950s. In this book, Carson made a passionate argument for protecting the environment from manmade pesticides.

Silent Spring (1962) is the most enduring work of nonfiction by Rachel Carson (1907–1964), the noted American marine biologist and groundbreaking environmentalist.

Silent spring published