Reviews
A historically important book and it does contain very important information about pesticides and how their often unregulated and unwarranted use impacts wildlife and humanity. However, each part seems very repetitive, driving the same narrative over and over again, which significantly takes away from the readability. Pick up the foreword and any one single chapter, and you will get pretty much everything there’s to get out of Silent Spring. Impactful as a long essay, but tedious in its entirety.
3.5 stars. I had to annotate this book VERY THOROUGHLY for school and it took so much time out of my life (because I’m an even slower annotator than I am a reader) that I feel like it took away from my enjoyment of the book. I think I would have liked it much more and appreciated it more if I had read it for fun. That being said, I still think that this is a brilliant study that has themes and messages that are still very relevant today despite the fact that it was written in the early 60s.
This book is basically a loooooong list of examples how the missuse of chemical pest control can lead to carastrophic side effects. Very impressive, but somewhat tedious to read. Nevertheless feels like a must-read for ecologists, a true piece of biological history.
The message this book conveys was important 50 years ago and is just as important today. Rachel Carson in clear and consise in her arguments which are backed by logic and over 100 pages of principle sources. I’m glad I read this book and I am apprecfor what it did for the environmental movement—and what it is still doing today. I recommend that everyone should read this book. Whether you have an interest in the environment or not, this book is essential to understanding where the issues affecting our environment came from.
An eloquent plea for a saner treatment of our environment. The book is dedicated to Albert Schweitzer, who I think said it most deftly, "Man has lost the capacity to forsee and forstall. He will end by destroying the earth."
Intellectual and scientific. Rachel Carson is one of the few revolutionary women of her time. With extensive research and case studies, Carson has shown her passion and belief that eventually initiated an environmental movement. Her theory of how DDT and harmful chemicals can be found vastly in other species is a relevant concept and applies even to the current situation with plastic. Nature must be kept in balance without any human intervention. Enlightening and informative!
