Mart, Michelle (Author)
University Press of Kansas
Physical Details: 344
Language: English
“Presto! No More Pests!” proclaimed a 1955 article introducing two new pesticides, "miracle-workers for the housewife and back-yard farmer." Easy to use, effective, and safe: who wouldn’t love synthetic pesticides? Apparently most Americans did—and apparently still do. Why—in the face of dire warnings, rising expense, and declining effectiveness—do we cling to our chemicals? Michelle Mart wondered. Her book, a cultural history of pesticide use in postwar America, offers an answer.America's embrace of synthetic pesticides began when they burst on the scene during World War II and has held steady into the 21st century—for example, more than 90% of soybeans grown in the US in 2008 are Roundup Ready GMOs, dependent upon generous use of the herbicide glyphosate to control weeds. Mart investigates the attraction of pesticides, with their up-to-the-minute promise of modernity, sophisticated technology, and increased productivity—in short, their appeal to human dreams of controlling nature. She also considers how they reinforced Cold War assumptions of Western economic and material superiority. Though the publication of Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring and the rise of environmentalism might have marked a turning point in Americans’ faith in pesticides, statistics tell a different story. Pesticides, a Love Story recounts the campaign against DDT that famously ensued; but the book also shows where our notions of Silent Spring’s revolutionary impact falter—where, in spite of a ban on DDT, farm use of pesticides in the United States more than doubled in the thirty years after the book was published. As a cultural survey of popular and political attitudes toward pesticides, Pesticides, a Love Story tries to make sense of this seeming paradox. At heart, it is an exploration of the story we tell ourselves about the costs and benefits of pesticides—and how corporations, government officials, ordinary citizens, and the press shape that story to reflect our ideals, interests, and emotions.
...MoreReview Joshua Blu Buhs (2017) Review of "Pesticides, A Love Story: America's Enduring Embrace of Dangerous Chemicals". Journal of Southern History (pp. 233-234).
Review Edwin A. Martini (January 2017) Review of "Pesticides, A Love Story: America's Enduring Embrace of Dangerous Chemicals". Environmental History (pp. 156-158).
Similar Citations
Book
Frank A. von Hippel;
(2020)
The Chemical Age: How Chemists Fought Famine and Disease, Killed Millions, and Changed Our Relationship with the Earth
(/isis/citation/CBB611685238/)
Article
Vail, David D.;
(2012)
Kill That Thistle: Rogue Sprayers, Bootlegged Chemicals, Wicked Weeds, and the Kansas Chemical Laws, 1945--1980
(/isis/citation/CBB001200584/)
Book
Angelo, Mary Jane;
(2013)
The Law and Ecology of Pesticides and Pest Management
(/isis/citation/CBB001422253/)
Article
Frederick Rowe Davis;
(2019)
Pesticides and the Perils of Synecdoche in the History of Science and Environmental History
(/isis/citation/CBB309063848/)
Book
Jundt, Thomas;
(2014)
Greening the Red, White, and Blue: The Bomb, Big Business, and Consumer Resistance in Postwar America
(/isis/citation/CBB001422360/)
Book
Dvera I. Saxton;
(2021)
The Devil's Fruit: Farmworkers, Health, and Environmental Justice
(/isis/citation/CBB347232041/)
Article
Nash, Linda;
(2004)
The Fruits of Ill-Health: Pesticides and Workers' Bodies in Post-World War II California
(/isis/citation/CBB000750328/)
Article
Vail, David D.;
(2012)
Toxic Fables: The Advertising and Marketing of Agricultural Chemicals in the Great Plains, 1945--1985
(/isis/citation/CBB001251551/)
Article
Kumar, Ajay;
(2013)
Historic Development of Green Chemistry
(/isis/citation/CBB001211976/)
Book
Richard S. Newman;
(2016)
Love Canal: A Toxic History from Colonial Times to the Present
(/isis/citation/CBB272782783/)
Article
Jennie L Durant;
(October 2020)
Ignorance loops: How non-knowledge about bee-toxic agrochemicals is iteratively produced
(/isis/citation/CBB459611870/)
Article
Shane Hamilton;
(2022)
New Materialism and the History of Agribusiness
(/isis/citation/CBB921018299/)
Article
Rudy, Kathy;
(2012)
Locavores, Feminism, and the Question of Meat
(/isis/citation/CBB001202115/)
Book
Sarah Farmer;
(2020)
Rural Inventions: The French Countryside after 1945
(/isis/citation/CBB137637811/)
Book
Adam Tompkins;
(2016)
Ghostworkers and Greens: The Cooperative Campaigns of Farmworkers and Environmentalists for Pesticide Reform
(/isis/citation/CBB822485608/)
Article
Ahern, Lee;
Bortree, Denise Sevick;
Smith, Alexandra Nutter;
(2013)
Key Trends in Environmental Advertising across 30 Years in National Geographic Magazine
(/isis/citation/CBB001320412/)
Article
Olson, Philip R.;
(2014)
Flush and Bone: Funeralizing Alkaline Hydrolysis in the United States
(/isis/citation/CBB001421210/)
Book
Kinkela, David;
(2011)
DDT and the American Century: Global Health, Environmental Politics, and the Pesticide That Changed the World
(/isis/citation/CBB001212493/)
Book
Roberts, Donald W.;
Tren, Richard;
(2010)
The Excellent Powder: DDT's Political and Scientific History
(/isis/citation/CBB001033767/)
Article
Hay, Amy M.;
(2012)
Dispelling the “Bitter Fog”: Fighting Chemical Defoliation in the American West
(/isis/citation/CBB001251552/)
Be the first to comment!