The Gentle Subversive: Rachel Carson, Silent Spring, and the Rise of the Environmental MovementRachel Carson's Silent Spring antagonized some of the most powerful interests in the nation--including the farm block and the agricultural chemical industry--and helped launch the modern environmental movement. In The Gentle Subversive, Mark Hamilton Lytle offers a compact biography of Carson, illuminating the road that led to this vastly influential book. Lytle explores the evolution of Carson's ideas about nature, her love for the sea, her career as a biologist, and above all her emergence as a writer of extraordinary moral and ecological vision. We follow Carson from her childhood on a farm outside Pittsburgh, where she first developed her love of nature (and where, at age eleven, she published her first piece in a children's magazine), to her graduate work at Johns Hopkins and her career with the Fish and Wildlife Service. Lytle describes the genesis of her first book, Under the Sea-Wind, the incredible success of The Sea Around Us (a New York Times bestseller for over a year), and her determination to risk her fame in order to write her "poison book": Silent Spring. The author contends that despite Carson's demure, lady-like demeanor, she was subversive in her thinking and aggressive in her campaign against pesticides. Carson became the spokeswoman for a network of conservationists, scientists, women, and other concerned citizens who had come to fear the mounting dangers of the human assault on nature. What makes this story particularly compelling is that Carson took up this cause at the very moment when she herself faced a losing battle with cancer. Succinct and engaging, The Gentle Subversive is a story of success, celebrity, controversy, and vindication. It will inspire anyone interested in protecting the natural world or in women's struggle to find a voice in society. |
From inside the book
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Page 15
... Robert and Maria Carson . In some ways , she was almost an only child since her sis- ter and brother were so much older . When she was born on May 27 , 1907 , her sister Marian was ten and her brother Robert eight . After Robert's birth ...
... Robert and Maria Carson . In some ways , she was almost an only child since her sis- ter and brother were so much older . When she was born on May 27 , 1907 , her sister Marian was ten and her brother Robert eight . After Robert's birth ...
Page 16
... Robert . Rachel was the youngest of the three Carson children and the object of her mother's de- votion . ( SOURCE : Courtesy of the Rachel Carson Council . ) brought blue - collar workers , smoke - belching power. · 16 . THE GENTLE ...
... Robert . Rachel was the youngest of the three Carson children and the object of her mother's de- votion . ( SOURCE : Courtesy of the Rachel Carson Council . ) brought blue - collar workers , smoke - belching power. · 16 . THE GENTLE ...
Page 17
... Robert Carson cobbled together a living by selling an occa- sional lot and traveling to sell insurance . To supplement his un- steady income , he eventually took a part - time job at the nearby West Penn Power Plant . His two older ...
... Robert Carson cobbled together a living by selling an occa- sional lot and traveling to sell insurance . To supplement his un- steady income , he eventually took a part - time job at the nearby West Penn Power Plant . His two older ...
Page 19
... Robert Louis Stevenson were among her favorites . Despite frequent absences from school , or perhaps because of them , Rachel became an outstanding student . She worked dili- gently and from second to seventh grade received nothing but ...
... Robert Louis Stevenson were among her favorites . Despite frequent absences from school , or perhaps because of them , Rachel became an outstanding student . She worked dili- gently and from second to seventh grade received nothing but ...
Page 20
... Robert Louis Stevenson , Rudyard Kipling , and L. Frank Baum , author of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz . It also published young writers who would become part of the American literary canon — E . B. White ( of Stuart Little fame ) , Edna ...
... Robert Louis Stevenson , Rudyard Kipling , and L. Frank Baum , author of The Wonderful Wizard of Oz . It also published young writers who would become part of the American literary canon — E . B. White ( of Stuart Little fame ) , Edna ...
Contents
1 | |
13 | |
SUMMER Florescence The Sea Around Us | 55 |
FALL The Fullness of Life From The Edge of the Sea to DDT | 94 |
WINTER The Poison Book and the Dark Season of Vindication | 133 |
Rachel Carson The Legacy | 196 |
Afterword | 231 |
Bibliography | 259 |
Index | 262 |
Other editions - View all
The Gentle Subversive: Rachel Carson, Silent Spring, and the Rise of the ... Mark Hamilton Lytle No preview available - 2007 |
Common terms and phrases
agricultural American animals April Audubon Society became began biologist biology birds cancer Carson to Rodell Carson wrote chapter Charles Elton chemical companies Cottam creatures critics Cuyahoga Despite discovered Dorothy Freeman earth ecology Edwin Way Teale Elton environment environmental movement fire Fish and Wildlife friends Houghton Mifflin House Huckins human Ibid ideas industry insects knew Lear letter literary living things magazine malaria Maria Carson Marie Rodell Mary Scott Skinker Michael Crichton million mother mystery National nature Nicholas Magazine ocean Paul Brooks pesticides pollution posed published Rachel Carson RC to DF RCP-BLYU readers river Robert Robert Cushman Murphy Rodell Ruckelshaus sanderlings scientific scientists Sea-Wind sense September Shawn shore Silent Spring species Spock spraying story subversive summer tide tion told turned USDA wanted William Shawn women wondered Worster writing York Yorker