Silent Spring by Rachel Carson

company tried to s top publication on the grounds that Mis s Cars on had made a miss tatement
about one of their products. She hadn’ t, and publication procee ded on s chedule.
She hers elf was s ingularly unmoved by all this furor.
Meanwhile, as a direct result of the message in Silent Spring, Pres ident Kenne dy s et up a
s pecial panel of his Science Advis ory Committee to s tudy the proble m of pes ticides. The panel’s
report, when it appeare d s ome months later, was a complete vindication of he r thes is. Rachel
Cars on was very modes t about her accomplis hment. As s he wrote to a clos e friend when the
manus cript was nearing completion: “The beauty of the living world I was trying to save has
always been uppermos t in my mind—that, and anger at the s ens eless , brutis h things that were
being done.... Now l can believe I have at least helped a little.” In fact, her book helped to make
ecology, which was an unfamiliar word in those days , one of the great popular caus es of our
time. It led to environmental legislation at every level of government.
Twenty-five years after its original publication, Silent Spring has more than a historical
interes t. Such a book bridges the gulf between what C. P. Snow called “the two cultures .”
Rachel Carson was a realistic, well-trained s cientis t who pos s ess ed the ins ight and s ensitivity of
a poet. She had an e motional res pons e to nature f or which s he did not apologize. The more she
learned, the greate r grew what s he terme d “the s ens e of wonder.” So s he s ucceeded in making
a book about death a celebration of life. Rereading her book today, one is aware that its
implications are far broader than the immediate crisis with which it dealt. By awaking us to a
s pecific danger—the pois oning of the earth with che micals—s he has helped us to recognize
many othe r ways (s ome little known in her ti me) in which mankind is degrading the quality of
life on our planet.
And Silent Spring will continue to remi nd us that in ou r over- organized and over-
mechanized age, individual initiative and courage s till count: change can be brought about, not
through inciteme nt to war or violent revolution, but rathe r by altering the direction of our
thinking about the world we live in.