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| Silent Spring | 
| Author: Rachel Carson
Creators: Edward O. Wilson, Linda Lear
Publisher: Mariner Books
Category: Book
List Price: $14.95
Buy Used: $3.80
You Save: $11.15 (75%)
New (60) Collectible (7) from $6.00
Avg. Customer Rating:  135 reviews
Sales Rank: 1861
Format: Special Edition
Media: Paperback
Edition: 104
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 400
Shipping Weight (lbs): 2.3
Dimensions (in): 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.7
ISBN: 0618249060
Dewey Decimal Number: 363.7384
UPC: 046442249065
EAN: 9780618249060
ASIN: 0618249060
Publication Date: October 22, 2002
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: Slice Across Cover and Title Pages, Otherwise Like New Condition, Never Been Read , Immediate Shipping, Email Notification, Professional Service, MILLIONS Served, SATISFACTION GUARANTEED!
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| Customer Reviews:
 A misguided mass killer April 28, 2006
31 out of 106 found this review helpful
Before this misguided book was published, DDT was successfully reducing malaria deaths across the globe. After it, and the subsequent ban on DDT, millions of people have suffered and died needlessly. For example, in Sri Lanka in 1948, there were 2.8 million malaria cases and 7,300 malaria deaths. With widespread DDT use, malaria cases fell to 17 and no deaths in 1963. After DDT use was discontinued, Sri Lankan malaria cases rose to 2.5 million in the years 1968 and 1969, and the disease remains a killer in Sri Lanka today.
Carson' science is dodgy, her conclusions false and her prescriptions plain wrong. Do not buy this book
 Rachel Carson was right April 18, 2006
23 out of 31 found this review helpful
When Silent Spring was first published I was a young chemist working for a chemical company in Philadelphia. I remember well how she was engaged in a TV debate with one of the big guns from one of the major manufacturers of insecticides. I thought she handled herself very well then and for the remainder of her life while she endured withering attacks from vested interests and people who want to live in a dream world. To the people who say she caused the deaths of millions because she stopped the use of DDT, you didn't read the book! Mosquito resistance to DDT is easily developed and its continued use will lead to mosquitos of greater resistance. It may be true there are application methods for DDT that are relatively safe for protection against various mosquito borne diseases but she did not cause them to be outlawed. Even though the Government screws up often,it does ocasionally makes fact based decisions that are correct. If DDT is outlawed, it is because the facts dictate it, not Rachel Carson.
For those misinformed souls who think DDT is not toxic, you lie or you have been lied to. Just goggle "DDT toxicity" and you will find out what a danger this chemical really is.
Her science is sound. After 44 years, her book is still worth a read. Much progress has been made to protect our environment. This book has played an important part in making this happen.
 Why should I read this book? April 18, 2006
7 out of 12 found this review helpful
Rachel Carson's "Silent Spring" was the impetus that brought about the environmental movement as we know it today. Her unparalleled research, during 1962, exposed and condemned the use of DDT and ADT as forms of chemical pesticides and insecticides. The book provides shocking evidence and anecdotes of the affects of contamination, which often lead to death. Her stories and evidence was shocking because it not only opened the eyes of millions Americans to the carcinogens they were eating daily, but it opened up an entirely different area of environmental science. No long was it limited to preservation, such as the Sierra Club, but now the idea that humans have a negative impact on the environment.
I believe Carson wrote this book as a wake up call to the American Public. After observing a "Silent Spring", in which no birds chirped or bugs buzzed, she dug deeper into the extent at which these chemicals were being used. She was compelled to do research and write this book because she wanted people to know what havoc these chemicals were having on the earth.
If you are interested in environmental science I feel this book is a great tool for learning where environmental history begins, a lot of it begins with this book. If Carson hadn't written this book, then the use of DDT and ADT would still be in effect today. That thought alone would provide us with a much different future, in both a negative and positive light, because while DDT and ADT were bad, we have to this day, not found equivalent replacements that are as effective.
DDT case study a "fraud" March 20, 2006
14 out of 20 found this review helpful
It's been several years since I've read "Silent Spring," one of the most significant environmental books ever written, but I must respond to the posting by "seem," which is titled "murderous, over the top propaganda" (I correctly your misspelling of the last word): His recommendation to read "DDT: A Case Study in Scientific Fraud" was put out by the Heartland Institute and is, in itself, a "fraud." The Heartland Institute is one of the most pro-chemical, pro-industry, anti-environmental and right-wing organizations around. Nothing they put out should be believed for a second.
Pesimistic, but Worth It February 28, 2006
1 out of 7 found this review helpful
This book is a pessimisitic, unflattering view of pesticides and their effects on the world. Rachel Carson seems to drone for a long time about how man is killing the world, only submitting to a positive approach on 15 out of the 300 pages. Despite this overriding negative tone, the book has some very clear strengths. The book activily explores the interlocking connections of our world, connecting life, to soil, to air, to water, and all of them together. She explains those connections by the transfer of pesticides through the environment and food chains, but that concept transfers outside of pesticides too.
Although this book may have some exceedingly pesismistic points to it, it does have historical value, and some strong scientific value.
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Wildlife, nature and the Environment
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