At the
Guardian Will Hutton tagged ten polemical masterpieces that transformed the west, including:
Silent Spring by Rachel Carson (1962)
This was the foundation of the modern environmental movement. Painstakingly and exhaustively researched, it exposed the widespread use of toxic pesticides to improve crop yields as a menace to nature and humanity alike. The title brilliantly captured the book’s core message – that human and natural life are interdependent, that today’s generation has a duty to itself and succeeding generations to organise itself so life is sustainable and that the price of not doing so is not only materially damaging – it risks silencing the tumult of nature as it comes to life in the Spring. The chemical industry attacked the book and its author – but its popularity not only forced changes to the way pesticides were administered, but triggered a much wider examination of what humans were – and are – doing to nature.
Read about
the other entries on the list.
Silent Spring made a list of
the best books on global warming at the
Guardian in 2009. It is among
Helen Macdonald's six favorite books,
Tim Dee's ten best nature books,
Gill Lewis's ten top birds in books, and
John Kerry's five top books about progressivism.
--Marshal Zeringue
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