£50
FIRST BRITISH EDITION, 8vo, pp. xxii, 304, [1]. Original brown boards, spine lettered in silver on a red ground, top edge red, dustjacket printed in orange, yellow, and black. Some spotting, particularly to title-page. Dustjacket sunned (especially spine) and soiled with small tears to top.
First serialised in The New Yorker throughout June of 1962, 'Silent Spring' is one of the most influential books in the environmental movement, named one of the 25 greatest science books of all time by Discover magazine. Carson first began investigating the use and dangers of pesticides in 1957, though she had harboured concerns since noticing the widespread use of chemical agents during WWII.
The book originally began as a collaboration between Carson and journalist Edwin Diamond (the science editor at Newsweek at the time), with Carson planing to contribute the introduction and conclusion. But as she took on extensive correspondence with, as biographer Linda Lear stated in the Environmental History Review, 'every independent scientist who knew something about pesticides and every government scientist who was brave enough to answer her letters', the project be came her own. Notably, Diamond became one of the quickest and harshest critics upon the book's release, indicting Carson as 'emotional' and 'alarmist', and arguing that the book only gained success due to timing (following a recall of all cranberry products due to a herbicide as well as thousands of deaths and birth defects caused by thalidomide) and a leg up from the serialisation in The New Yorker. Extensive scholarship has since characterised the backlash as sexist and financially motivated, which included attacks from DuPont, a major manufacturer of DDT.
As a response, JFK ordered an investigation on the science behind Silent Spring, with a full report published in May of 1963, defending the validity of Carson's arguments and leading to stricter regulations on the use of pesticides. Few books can be so easily traced as a direct agent of change, with David Attenborough reportedly describing Silent Spring as 'the book which has most profoundly shaped the scientific world other than On the Origin of Species' (Economist, 27 September, 2022).
