|
| Silent Spring | 
| Author: Rachel Carson
Creators: Edward O. Wilson, Linda Lear
Publisher: Mariner Books
Category: Book
List Price: $14.95
Buy Used: $2.78
You Save: $12.17 (81%)
New (64) Collectible (7) from $5.57
Avg. Customer Rating:  134 reviews
Sales Rank: 2371
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: PAPERBACK, CLEAN UNREAD COPY, Free Delivery Confirmation, Orders Processed Quickly, Will Ship Immediately
|
| Customer Reviews:
 A classic for good reasons February 12, 2006
17 out of 20 found this review helpful
Silent Spring - Rachel Carson (40th Anniversary Edition)
It was finally time for me to pick up the book that is often credited with inspiring or starting the modern environmental movement. I'd heard of Silent Spring many times from environmental speakers and had seen it referenced in The Ecology of Commerce and in Megatrends 2010 (see other reviews). The title has lost nothing of its timeliness or relevance with the passage of more than 40 years since its first printing. To that point, First Mariner Books published a 40th Anniversary Edition with introduction and afterword by Linda Lear and Edward O. Wilson, respectively, that place the book and author in historical context and give credit for the impact both have had on our world.
I want to first of all give the author praise for being much more balanced and far-seeing in her thinking than any of the detractors whose reviews I've read on Amazon would hint at. The main charge post-humously leveled is that rampant unthinking DDT (or worse) use would have saved lives lost to malaria had it not been for one woman writing a slanderous attack on the petrochem industry whose only apparent reason for being is to improve life. Rachel Carson's prose may have been very eloquent, pursuasive and moving but she was not advocating an extreme or unthinking position. Whereas she may have been extremely passionate about the need to make changes in the spray away mindset of the day, she did not call for throwing away what science could contribute to public health and well-being or even economic productivity. Quite the contrary, based on an ecological mindset and a commitment to understand nature and work with her, Carson encouraged exploring biologically wise means to control pests that thrive in a bio-defense impoverished monoculture. She cited figures and facts on successful pioneering integrated pest management programs and made a cost-benefit analysis that set the balance right.
I may have majored in Economics, but I'll gladly take my science from scientists like Rachel Carson rather than the PR department of a chemical firm with a vested interest in selling a "silver bullet" that has to be reapplied year after year in greater amounts. Carson makes an ironclad case for the dangers of bioaccumulation of toxins in the food chain (yeah and guess who's at the top), the ill-targetted dispersal methods, insect resistance due to extremely short reproduction cycles and the mutagenic qualities of many of the new wave of pesticides. She lays out her arguments in such clear language and with sufficient analogies and background that a layman can easily follow and be more conversant in the concepts of the subject matter. The other criticism of the book by detractors' reviews is that there are "too many facts" referenced in it - I don't think these readers have any sense for the time period that Rachel Carson was writing in and the need for a woman, an outsider, to make damn sure that she lined up all the facts she could behind her case so as to not just be dismissed ad hominem when raising concern about how the men in the white coats were wisley dragging us down the wrong path.
What's with all the wingnuts claiming that Carson is responsible for millions of malaria deaths by banning DDT? Nice Limbaughesque talking point, but as often, WAY OFF TARGET. The main thrust of the book is against agricultural pesticides where the damage caused by the target pest is economically less significant than the collateral damage of control efforts to the environment and human well-being. The reference to mosquito control in the actual book these buffoons claim to be reviewing is 1). a warning on mosquito resistance, 2). risk of wiping out the mosquitos natural predators with indiscrimminate control strategies (Nissan Island WWII), 3).exploring other more targetted control measures such as ultrasound.
Horribly misunderstood January 2, 2006
5 out of 10 found this review helpful
I love this book. Mostly because of its beauty and poignancy in its ability to make true science and ecology accessible to the average reader.
Unfortunantly, this book has also been used, and misused, by both sides of the environmentalist movement to justify there rather flawed beliefs.
You see, because of the wide ban of DDT, the death rate of malaria has grown tremendously over the past 40+ years. The reason is because uninformed individuals misunderstand the purpose behind the book. Carson's concern was the use of DDT for AGRICULTURAL purposes, NOT health care purposes.
Unfortunantly, social conservatives have used this rather unfortunante and tragic mistake from the environmentalist movement as ammo against the environmentalist movement as a whole, using a gross and unfair generalization that is just as tragic as the millions who have died from malaria due to the irresponsible and uninformed DDT regulations in our country.
Be smart, be open minded, be knowledgeable, and THEN read this book, and its true purpose and beauty will eventually come to you quite easily, and you will be informed.
The book they tried to dismiss ... December 14, 2005
7 out of 11 found this review helpful
In "Any Questions" on BBC Radio 4 a panel of politicians were quizzed in turn as to one person they thought would be regarded as an important person in the future from the 20th century who improved the lot of us humans. Of about four panelists one said Nelson Mandela. Being unimaginative this was backed up by about two of the others. I would have mentioned Rachel Carson although she still represents an unsung heroine - the pioneer of the "Deep Ecology" movement.
Unfortunately a lot of what she had to say is still ignored by mainstream politicians though enough has trickled through to create a stream of people who think in the context of concern for all life on Earth rather than how best one group of us can dominate and manipulate our human and environmental resources at irreplaceable cost to life as we know it.
This is the book that started it all - showing us that science and technology unrestrained were not the solution to all our problems. The EPA at least owes its very existence to Carson.
I salute Carson and her book as a lighthouse that guided our thinking from the cliffs of short sighted destructiveness. Long may the beacon prevail.
This is an important book. Perhaps dated, Carson's voice is not shrill but reasoned and strident. A classic worth sharing and upgrading.
 murderous, over the top propoganda. December 12, 2005
12 out of 59 found this review helpful
to save us all time, type this into a search engine: "ddt: a case study in scientific fraud"
Rachel Carson's work has killed an astonishing number of people.
 Dated, but not dated October 26, 2005
8 out of 13 found this review helpful
The value of this book, more than 40 years after it was published, is not what it tells us about DDT. Regardless of whether or not you think DDT causes cancer in humans, we don't have it to kick around anymore -- DDT is effectively outside the zone of reasonable environmental policy debate. Instead, focus on what Silent Spring tells us about the interconnectedness of nature, the unintended consequences of our attempts to control it, and the forces that might be trying to deny those consequences exist. Those are lessons that apply not just to DDT but to industrial agriculture, genetically modified organisms, and other more current topics. This is a very insightful book, even for 2005.
|
|
|
Wildlife, nature and the Environment
Sponsored Links
Learn how to get your own Amazon Book shop | |
