Bonus read: Silent Spring
This book was published in 1962 and is credited with igniting the modern environmental movement. The book lays bare the many negative effects of indiscriminate pesticide use in the U.S. Author Rachel Carson carefully and meticulously described how toxins like DDT were introduced into the food chain and accumulated in the fatty tissue of animals, including human beings, causing cancer and other sickness.
Silent Spring has not been banned, but it was heavily challenged by many chemical companies and is worth a read for anyone interested in the history of environmentalism in this country. Campaigns against Carson’s book and research leaned on the importance of using DDT to protect people from the spread of malaria. Monsanto even published a parody of the first chapter of Silent Spring. Despite these challenges, President John F. Kennedy asked that the President’s Science Advisory Committee examine the argument the book made against pesticides, and DDT was eventually banned in the U.S. in the early 1970s.
