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    Silent Spring
    Silent Spring
    Silent Spring
    Audiobook10 hours

    Silent Spring

    Written by Rachel Carson

    Narrated by Kaiulani Lee

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    First published in 1962, Silent Spring can singlehandedly be credited with sounding the alarm and raising awareness of humankind's collective impact on its own future through chemical pollution. No other book has so strongly influenced the environmental conscience of Americans and the world at large. "Silent Spring came as a cry in the wilderness, a deeply felt, thoroughly researched, and brilliantly written argument that changed the course of history."-Vice President Al Gore
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateJan 26, 2007
    ISBN9781440781278
    Author

    Rachel Carson

    Rachel Carson (1907–1964) spent most of her professional life as a marine biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. By the late 1950s, she had written three lyrical, popular books about the sea, including the best-selling The Sea Around Us, and had become the most respected science writer in America. She completed Silent Spring against formidable personal odds, and with it shaped a powerful social movement that has altered the course of history.

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    Reviews for Silent Spring

    4/5

    832 ratings46 reviews

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    • 5/5
      I grew up in the 40’s /50’s /60’s where she claims in one of the worst areas in the country, downstate Illinois.
      I know many people who have died from very rare forms of cancers only one in a million gets.
      People living in those areas were lied to and used as suckers by the same country many 15 years prior people had given loved ones arms, legs and lives for in WW-2 and Korea.
      Looking back what a fool I was raising a family in that cancer saturated area, wished I’d found the book when it was first published.
      I feel lucky to still be alive!
    • 5/5
      One of the best known environmental classics, a work that eventually led to the banning of DDT in the United States. Ms. Carson painstakingly details all of the evidence of the dangers of DDT, which had until that time been trumpeted as totally safe to humans. Written in easy prose, the book shouldn't be too technical for the lay reader.
    • 5/5
      So happy I finally got around to reading this. What a classic in the environmental field!
    • 4/5
      A legendary book from the 1960s that I had never read until now.Carson tells the story of the (mis)application of toxic chemicals intended as insect pest controls. As she vividly points out in the book, the pesticides failed signally in their objective, and caused untold (until she wrote) collateral damage to wildlife and humans.The author writes beauftiful text - the sense flows effortlessly off the page. While she was clearly as mad as hell, she restrains herself in the writing, and makes every effort to present facts dispassionately - this was not the twitter era.I read in the afterword that she was ferociously attacked by vested interests following publication of the book. But, she won - she was right, they were wrong, and she roused such a public reaction that the toxic chemical industry was forced to buckle under some governmental constraints - not a perfect ending, but quite a vindication for a brave author.
    • 5/5
      A good edition of this excellent book, with an introduction by Linda Lear and an afterword by E.O. Wilson. I finally decided it was time to sit and take time to read Carson's work, and used an unexpectedly pleasant spring day to do it, mostly in one sitting. It's brilliant and powerful and there should be more like it.
    • 5/5
      “Silent Spring” by Rachel Carson is a passionate book. It is a superb book. It is a book that arrived at a good point in history. Rachel Carson blended science with a deep concern for the environment to produce a book of breathtaking beauty. There is a strangely lyrical quality to her writing. I read the book almost through in one sitting. When I read about the reactions that followed the publication of this book, I can only stand back and admire her courage. I wish we had such people in India.
    • 5/5
      Scariest book I've ever read! (sorry Stephen King!)
    • 4/5
      Great!! This is a classic of the environmental movement, and I’d recommend it to anybody interested in the topic. Carson is a bit repetitive at times, and her wording can be confusing, but for the most part she does a great job at describing the situation and reasons to pressure change in the way we interact with our environment. This book is written about the chemicals we put into the world, but the mindset it pushes can be extended far beyond that.
    • 5/5
      I first read this in the l960s and remember well the furor around it. It helped me early on to see the dark stain in humanity. Yes, it was widely applauded, then we went back to business as usual painting ourselves in a corner.
    • 5/5
      Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring launched the conservation movement that has continued to impact people’s lives all over the world. All life is interrelated and interdependent. Nature is what we see, hear, touch, smell, and experience in diverse ways. But still mankind has a lot to learn about how nature works. Publicly leaders have attempted to alter the face of nature for its convenience, health, and profit. But nature has laws by which it functions that can’t be broken without serious consequences.Entrepreneurs have developed an industrial society, and are pouring tons of carbon emissions in the atmosphere. For years there have been the uses of spraying on land and by air that have killed pests, an abundance of trees, wildlife, and animals alike. These poisons have the effect of disrupting the metabolism in humans so many of people are dying from cancer. Our world is armed with atomic bombs, and the radioactive fallout in some cases has poisoned our water supply. Yet some decision leaders persist in making decisions that are harmful to human life.So nature has always fought back with a resurgent of pests, death, and deformities of millions and millions of species – animals, reptiles, birds, fishes, trees, and shrubs. Many living species die immediately from the onslaught of poison, others linger, showing signs of malignancies, and there have even been noticeable effects on the weather. Humankind is still to learn how to live with nature in acceptable ways because it always retaliates with doomsday scenarios. Living well with nature has become an imperative that people can’t afford to ignore. It’s for our own well-being, safety, health, and doing what’s right for the preservation of future generations. Happily there have been some scientific developments that are making use of other techniques that have promise in dealing with these problems in more humane ways.
    • 4/5
      In today’s world, environmentalism is still controversial, although it’s becoming more popular (witness the growth of the Green Party in Europe’s recent elections). Environmentalism and economics are often counterposed against each other as if one loses when the other wins.

      In 1962, Rachel Carson wrote this book that brought environmental concerns to the fore. She contended that taking care of the plants and animals around us is a worthwhile project. For the most part, smart environmental planning helps financials as the beauty of the natural world tends to sell itself through overall health.

      Reading this book fifty-some-odd years later, I still find her first chapter quite moving. She imagines a world in which nature is disrupted and in which there is no natural equilibrium anymore. Human wastes have won the day. Although this future was not realized in the 1960s as much as it’s not real today, the rapid pace of environmental change (quick and massive) threatened to make it real. Broad-spectrum insecticides and herbicides were in vogue, and they threatened all of the biosphere with ill effects like cancer in humans, high toxin counts in species’ livers, and contaminated sources of water.

      Much of her evidence, of course, is dated from the year 1962 or before. One can pass over much of this book’s middle chapters with rapidity because the history of science passes quickly. Nonetheless, the beginnings and endings are relevant today through Carson’s vibrant voice. Those inclined towards a greener planet should pay attention as well as those interested, for or against, in the so-called Green New Deal. Indeed, Carson’s brains can inspire us to lead ourselves out of conflict into a smarter future.
    • 4/5
      A 1962 expose on the long-term costs of humanity’s abuse of the environment. Rachel Carson worked for the U.S. Department of Agriculture and she saw firsthand what pesticides, herbicides, and invasive insects were doing to animals, humans, and the ecosystem.This book was also for the book club I run for zoo volunteers. We had a very good discussion about it. The statistics and anecdotes were very shocking, though 57 years later none of us were exactly sure where society stands on any of the specific cases Carson discussed. Many of our current environmental problems are ones she could not have imagined – there’s no way to know what she would have thought of GMOs or organic panic or plastic vs. paper straws. Some of the solutions Carson proposed seem shockingly nearsighted to me, such as introducing invasive non-native predators to areas with invasive non-native pests. Noooooo! But it was still fascinating to read the origin of so much of our current knowledge about the environment.
    • 4/5
      Five stars for what it did in creating alarm about pesticides and indiscriminate spraying. 31/2 stars for the actual read. A dry read especially when dealing with the chemical breakdowns and dealing with those aspects of this story. I can see how this book opened the eyes of many people not familiar with what was happening with pesticides and farming, Many interesting facts in this book.
    • 3/5
      My first read of this classic. It wasn't at all what I had expected. Based on environmental books that are popular today, I had expected lyrical descriptive nature writing. No. There's a little of that, but this is more like a compendium of dozens and dozens of investigative reports like you might find in the NY Times or Washington Post. All about chemical poisoning. That can be tedious, but it is also scary how regulation fails and can be suborned. I should probably start eating organic vegetables. Carson advocates strongly for importing insects to combat invasive insects, and she touts as a success when one introduced species is firmly established as a bulwark against an invasive species. As a non-expert, I'm not sure this perspective stands up well to time. Carson makes a good case for paying attention to the bigger picture, and not just going with the flow.
    • 4/5
      This is an amazing book: it really makes you think about what you can do to sustain our natural resources.
    • 4/5
      Given my interests and the timing of this book being published, one would think I would have read this book decades ago. It was certainly well known already when I was deep into my higher education pursuits so many years ago. I had always assumed it would be rather dated and much overshadowed by more modern research, if I were to read it now. Plus, I don't recall the last time the title of this book and DDT were not directly connected in comments I read about one or the other of the two. As it turns out, the book is startling in its applicability to today's world, especially one in which environmental protections are exuberantly being stripped off like so many layers of skin on a human being by a stunningly misguided government administration. (Can someone please pass a law requiring all candidates be able to read?) True, DDT is not much in the news now, but this book speaks directly and fluently about the very same issues that face the world now as to those it faced back in 1962. I have read other books that were more adept at stating their case about the intricacies of trying to manage our environment, but this book does a fine job of it and is well worth the read even now.
    • 4/5
      Reading this book so long after it was published makes clear that we have won little in the battle against the poisoning of the world. I come away from this book realizing that we need a new strategy in order to stop the living world from being destroyed by corporations.
    • 5/5
      As expected, the science is a bit dated since this book is now ~50 years old. However, Carson's main points are still valid and powerfully put. She helped create the environmental movement which many now take for granted. While I am pleased to know that some of the threats she described have been reversed or avoided (such as the recovery of many bird & fish species from the effects of DDT), I was still appalled by the hazards that pesticides & herbicides posed then & probably still do. I was also left with a strong feeling that the USDA and other governmental agencies of the 1940-60 period were rife with corruption -- I don't know if this was ever investigated but I sure hope that there is more oversight on these agencies now!Carson does an amazing job of giving explanations of some basic biology as well as the plentiful descriptions of case studies. Well worth reading.
    • 3/5
      Anniversary addition of the classic if controversial work. This includes a new introduction with a helpful brief biography of Rachel Carson and an afterword by Edward O. Wilson.
    • 5/5
      This is a truly awesome book that had significant impact on policy in the US regarding the use of pesticides. This was well researched and well written. The points off the book are clear and accurate. The data are not to be ignored.
    • 5/5
      The scary thing about reading this book at a fifty year remove, is not that one learns of new threats to our ecosphere, or even that many of the dangers highlighted are still in existence, it is that the corporate powers had to be dragged, screaming and kicking, into an admission of each threat. We have no reason to presume that this reluctance has passed into history and so, all that the last fifty years has accomplished is that the apologists have learned more subtle ways to gain-say the danger.In 1962, the poison producers simply brushed aside the concerns of the people, nowadays, they cry their best crocodile tears and promise that they are moving mountains to reverse the situation whilst, in reality, they blithely ignore the issues, as before.Back to the book, history has proved Carson correct on almost every fear that she expressed. Admittedly, the planet still exists but, it would be interesting to know how many deaths might have been avoided had the "progressives" accepted the flaws in their approach: indeed, had they so done, maybe the knee jerk reaction to genetic engineering and fracking would not be so universally negative. If the general public could have any belief that safeguards were in place, I am sure that a far greater number would be willing to allow this research, without attempts to disrupt.You may feel that this review is at a tangent to the book but, these are the areas which Ms. Carson would, I am sure, be tackling, were she to be writing now. The issues have changed, the response has not. The evidence of current misdemeanour's is kept from us, it is only by reminding ourselves of the historical position that we can see how to proceed now.
    • 1/5
      I can't say I read this book, because I didn't finish it. I discovered my inner environmentalist in elementary school, and when I learned about Rachel Carson, I was enamored. Perhaps I was simply too young for this book, and maybe my complaint about it only serves to illustrate the fact: it was boring. To give it a fair review, I should at least finish it, but I wanted to mark it down because I remember it so vividly. It was a disappointment.
    • 4/5
      I first read this book around 35 or 40 years ago. I will say there is a good reason it is a classic. A pivotal book that was treated unkindly in the 60's but has endured all these years. It now seems to be the most oft quoted book regarding the environment and the birth of the environmental movement.
    • 3/5
      This is one of those books I've been meaning to read for a while. It's written in an accessible, yet authoritative style and sets out the stark truths about the dangers of putting human-made chemicals which deal out death into the environment. It's obvious why this was such an influential work when it came out.I got a bit tired around the mid-way mark of reading about chemically-induced disasters and found myself skimming over some of those middle chapters, but I'm glad to have finally got around to reading the book.
    • 4/5
      I'm glad I read this book -- as Al Gore said in his intro to this edition, it really kicked off the environmental movement. I was impressed by Rachel Carson's writing ability and the way she created effective analogies to help a non-scientist like me understand how toxic insecticides threaten our world and our health. "Silent Spring" was also a scary book to read -- although chemicals like DDT have been banned, I couldn't help thinking about all the chemical and substances in modern life that could still be contaminating our water, earth, and sky and hurting us. And although the more biological solutions that Carson suggested made sense, it also made me wonder about the possible dangers of "playing God" and changing our natural environment. But a powerful, pursuasive read -- I can understand why it was so effective when it came out in 1962.
    • 5/5
      As we pass another vernal equinox in March of 2013, my mind wandered back to 1965 when I read Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring. This classic work, which became, in the words of Peter Matthiessen, “The cornerstone of the new environmentalism” has writing as beautiful as a perfect Spring day.Carson was born in 1907 and served many years as a marine biologist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. Three previous works on the environment of the oceans firmly fixed her as an eminent writer on nature. She died less than two years after the publication of Silent Spring. Her work set in motion profound changes in environmental laws to protect the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the land on which we live and grow our food.Carson’s study focuses on the indiscriminate use of the pesticide DDT, which was banned shortly after the book caused a world-wide sensation. Predictably, much opposition arose from opponents of the idea we need to protect our environment. Detractors in government and the then multimillion dollar chemical industry attacked Carson, because – as Linda Lear who wrote a biography of Carson wrote in the Introduction to my anniversary edition – they “were not about to allow a former government editor, a female scientist without a Ph.D. or an institutional affiliation, known only for her lyrical books on the sea, to undermine public confidence in its products or to question its integrity” (xvii). Those chemical companies now have profits in the billions. Lear continues, when this book “caught the attention of President Kennedy, federal and state investigations were launched into the validity of Carson’s claims” (xvii). The chapters then focus on various parts of the environment, the chemicals which were sprayed or dumped into each one, and the effects these chemicals had. The title “Silent Spring” reflects numerous reports of the death of thousands of song birds and other creatures following widespread use of DDT and other pesticides. I remember as a child watching trucks drive down our street spraying a white fog to kill mosquitoes. Sometimes the city issued warnings and other times not. My mother always made my sisters and me stay inside “until the smell went away.” However, I remember seeing children running and playing in the fog.Carson writes about the hundreds of new chemicals which find their way into use every year. In the mid-40s alone “over 200 chemicals were invented to kill insects, weeds, rodents, and other organisms described in the modern vernacular as ‘pests’” (7). Carson asks, “Can anyone believe it is possible to lay down such a barrage of poisons on the surface of the earth without making it unfit for all life? They should not be called ‘insecticides,’ but ‘biocides’” (8). Yet today, attacks continue on the EPA. A most worthy read for anyone concerned about the environment. 5 stars--Jim, 2/15/13
    • 5/5
      the first real book about protecting the environment, Rachel goes into what she and others did to remove poison from the earth and our food. she is one of the big reasons why DDT was banned. Anybody who cares about the earth and what you eat should read this
    • 3/5
      Because all of the quotes I’ve read from Silent Spring have been emotional appeals, I was worried the book would be all poetic descriptions, poorly grounded in science. Instead I found that, as the introduction claimed, Rachel Carson not only had a “lyrical, poetic voice” but also offered sound “scientific expertise” and an impressive “synthesis of wide-ranging material”.The introduction really helped place the book for me, in a period before environmentalism; after the cold war, when unpatriotic suggestions that we couldn’t control nature were frowned upon; and during a time when radiation was a recently recognized danger. Reading through the book without the introduction, Carson’s repetitive comparisons of chemical sprays to radiation might have become annoying. However, as the introduction pointed out, this was a rather clever move on her part given public consciousness of radiation as a real danger. The afterward also did a really good job of placing the book in relation to the following environmental movement and current ecological concerns. If you’re going to read Silent Spring, I would strongly recommend the 40th anniversary edition for these nice contextual additions.As anticipated, the writing was often very beautiful. Despite my half-dozen or so biology classes, I’ve never found the inner workings of the cell half as beautiful as I did reading Rachel Carson’s descriptions. At other times, her writing did become over the top with references to “the chemical death rain”, but her descriptions of the results of these chemicals made the hyperbole seem warranted. In fact, finishing this book I actually felt a profound sense of relief that we don’t live in a world without birds, because of the damages these chemicals caused.My only complaint with this read was that it quickly became repetitive. Although Rachel Carson’s point was novel at the time and people may have required more convincing, I was a convert pretty early on. In part because of the repetitiveness, I found the book informative but never really engaging. With a really great book, there’s always that point where you’ve really gotten into it and don’t want to put it down, except maybe to sleep…if you absolutely have to. With this read, I just never got to that point. Instead I felt like I had to force myself back into it whenever I took a break. Despite not getting really sucked in, this was an interesting and informative read which I think provides a great introduction for anyone interested in the history of the environmentalist movement.
    • 3/5
      In 1962, Carson argues that the wide use of spraying chemicals over crops and regions has far-reaching consequences beyond controlling the insects they are meant to kill. The spraying causes the deaths of birds, fish, and other wildlife, and does not have the intended result of eradicating the harmful insects, but instead seems to be only a temporary fix.This book is on some of the lists of most influential books of the 20th century, and essentially backed up the eventual banning of DDT, though Carson herself does not argue that insecticides should not be used, merely that their use needs to be done carefully, specifically (ie., killing the intended insect without upsetting the ecosystem more than necessary), and with full understanding of the dangers of the chemicals. While I am not sorry to have read it and I understand that it was an important work for its time, much of the specifics that Carson focuses on are dry and not as relevant today as they were forty years ago. Her chapters on cancer and genetics in particular have not aged well as our understanding of both have developed significantly. Since the book began as a series of articles written the New Yorker, the chapters are extremely topical and somewhat repetitive. In the end, I was rather bored and wishing for a Cliffs Notes version.
    • 5/5
      As important and relevant now as it was when it was written 50 years ago. Being a composting, recycling, organic gardener who has volunteered with wildlife organizations for years, I thought I was reasonably environmentally savvy, but Carson's work still managed to educate and dismay me. Both eloquent and remarkably succinct given the complicated chemical nature of the subject. It is amazing how much of her hotly contested "theories" have proven correct over the past five years. My walks through the local home and garden aisles are forever changed. A highly recommended book for all--it should be mandatory reading at high school level.