| Wildlife and Nature Books Online in Association with Amazon.com |    |
|
|
| | The Gentle Subversive: Rachel Carson, Silent Spring, and the Rise of the Environmental Movement (New Narratives in American History) | 
| Author: Mark Hamilton Lytle
Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
Category: Book
List Price: $17.95
Buy New: $12.28
You Save: $5.67 (32%)
New (19) from $12.28
Avg. Customer Rating:  3 reviews
Sales Rank: 243899
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 288
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.5
Dimensions (in): 6.7 x 4.7 x 0.7
ISBN: 0195172477
Dewey Decimal Number: 570.92
EAN: 9780195172478
ASIN: 0195172477
Publication Date: July 31, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Brand new Item. CD, DVD, Book, VHS more than 400 000 titles to choose from. ALL days Low Price !
|
| Also Available In:
|
| Similar Items:
|
| Editorial Reviews:
Product Description
Rachel Carson's Silent Spring antagonized some of the most powerful interests in the nation--including the farm block and the agricultural chemical industry--and helped launch the modern environmental movement. In The Gentle Subversive, Mark Hamilton Lytle offers a compact biography of Carson,
illuminating the road that led to this vastly influential book.
Lytle explores the evolution of Carson's ideas about nature, her love for the sea, her career as a biologist, and above all her emergence as a writer of extraordinary moral and ecological vision. We follow Carson from her childhood on a farm outside Pittsburgh, where she first developed her love of
nature (and where, at age eleven, she published her first piece in a children's magazine), to her graduate work at Johns Hopkins and her career with the Fish and Wildlife Service. Lytle describes the genesis of her first book, Under the Sea-Wind, the incredible success of The Sea Around Us (a New
York Times bestseller for over a year), and her determination to risk her fame in order to write her "poison book": Silent Spring. The author contends that despite Carson's demure, lady-like demeanor, she was subversive in her thinking and aggressive in her campaign against pesticides. Carson became
the spokeswoman for a network of conservationists, scientists, women, and other concerned citizens who had come to fear the mounting dangers of the human assault on nature. What makes this story particularly compelling is that Carson took up this cause at the very moment when she herself faced a
losing battle with cancer.
Succinct and engaging, The Gentle Subversive is a story of success, celebrity, controversy, and vindication. It will inspire anyone interested in protecting the natural world or in women's struggle to find a voice in society.
|
| Customer Reviews:
 A gem February 3, 2008
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
Mr. Lytle has written a very compelling biography of the gentle subversive. I was drawn to read this well-written biography of Rachel Carson from the title alone! I didn't know anything about her, except that she was the author of Silent Spring, which I have not read.
Controversies aside, I imagine she must have been an amazing person to know. That she was able to support her family, as well as nurse them through their illnesses until their deaths--with no outside help, throughout her career, AND also battle cancer along with the side effects of radiation, is heroic in and of itself. I admire that Carson managed to marry her passions of writing and nature in her lifetime, publishing several books despite the ceaseless personal obstacles around every corner. Even more impressive is the fact that she stood her ground on issues important to her, in a time when women were few in the sciences--let alone the working world, and that she wasn't afraid to face the powers that be in industry and government.
Rachel Carson was a thinking woman who wanted the public to be aware of the beauty around them, as well as the damage that could be done by injudicious use of chemicals.
This was truly enjoyable, informative and short!
 A sensitive subject indeed June 25, 2007
1 out of 15 found this review helpful
Rachel Carson's careless criticism of DDT killed millions of people, mostly poor children, a point that deserved better coverage in this book. Even today, decades later, there is still no good alternative to DDT for fighting malaria.
Carson was correct to point out that DDT has very bad side effects, but as it turns out, banning DDT has had much worse side effects. Science eventually determined that very small amounts of DDT would have been effective against malaria-carrying mosquitos and safe for the environment-- but Carson's rush to judgement prevented the scientific facts from being adequately investigated and considered.
She and her followers in the environmentalist movement refused to consider the full consequences of their actions, and millions of people have paid the price for that refusal.
. png
A Beautiful Tribute to the Life and Legacy of Rachel Carson March 8, 2007
22 out of 27 found this review helpful
Mark Lytle does fine justice to the legacy of Rachel Carson in this well researched summary of her early life, upbringing, education, professional experiences, evolution of her writing and publishing culminating with the struggles to write and publish her most potent and last book, "Silent Spring", a dire warning of how deadly pesticide and herbicide assaults were damaging the health of ecosystems and non-targeted life forms including humans and which many proffer, launched the modern age of environmentalism.
Lytle continues Carson's beautiful legacy in his "Epilogue" and "Afterword".
Packed with an abundance of notes, citations and bibliography, this little book gives one a huge sense of awe and admiration for Carson's perseverance and dedication to educate the world about the interconnectedness and beauty of Nature and to cultivate a sense of responsibility and good stewardship.
|
|
|
Wildlife, nature and the Environment
Sponsored Links
Learn how to get your own Amazon Book shop | |
|
