The Legacy of 'Silent Spring' 43 Years Later

It is over 40 years since Rachel Carson published Silent Spring, which many credit the with launching the environmentalist movement. When Silent Spring was published, Rachel Carson was already a well-known writer on natural history, but had not previously been a social critic. The book was widely read, spending several weeks on the New York Times best-seller list, and inspired widespread public concerns with pesticides and pollution of the environment. Silent Spring is credited with the ultimate banning of the pesticide DDT in the United States.

Burnside writes:

"Spring has become a little more silent with each passing year. The skylarks and warblers that used to be so plentiful in our countryside are vanishing, especially on those big, "profitable" farms the government seems to favor.

Part of the reason for this lamentable situation is that business and government have succeeded in keeping us all in two minds about ecology as a workable philosophy for daily life. The most calculated criticisms of Carson made in the wake of Silent Spring were that she was mystical or sentimental -- and somehow that view of philosophical ecology has stuck."