Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring is justly remembered as a landmark in the history of modern environmentalism. It is, however, a more complicated text than cultural memory tends to acknowledge. Blending conservative and traditional elements with more progressive and pioneering ones, Silent Spring is marked by a complexity that extends to its reception and legacy. This article argues that—in a seeming paradox—it was the more conservative elements of Silent Spring that allowed it to be considered a revolutionary book. Carson carefully constructed her argument in ways that facilitated its initial acceptance. But those same decisions made it easier for supporters to de-emphasize its more radical implications, even as they granted it revolutionary status.
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Book
Sideris, Lisa H.;
Moore, Kathleen Dean;
(2008)
Rachel Carson: Legacy and Challenge
(/isis/citation/CBB000951552/)
Book
Musil, Robert K.;
(2014)
Rachel Carson and Her Sisters: Extraordinary Women Who Have Shaped America's Environment
(/isis/citation/CBB001422328/)
Article
Hay, Amy M.;
(2012)
Dispelling the “Bitter Fog”: Fighting Chemical Defoliation in the American West
(/isis/citation/CBB001251552/)
Book
Larry Nielsen;
(2017)
Nature's Allies: Eight Conservationists Who Changed Our World
(/isis/citation/CBB727782895/)
Book
Anne Marie Todd;
(2015)
Communicating Environmental Patriotism: A Rhetorical History of the American Environmental Movement
(/isis/citation/CBB783392810/)
Thesis
Gary Brooten;
(2016)
The Very Useful Notion: A Rhetorical History of the Idea of Human-Made Climate Change, 1950-2000
(/isis/citation/CBB642785483/)
Article
Dmitriy Myelnikov;
(2020)
Creature Features: The Lively Narratives of Bacteriophages in Soviet Biology and Medicine
(/isis/citation/CBB744503683/)
Article
Barrow, Mark V., Jr.;
(2012)
Carson in Cartoon: A New Window onto the Noisy Reception to Silent Spring
(/isis/citation/CBB001251550/)
Article
Davis, Frederick R.;
(2012)
“Like a Keen North Wind”: How Charles Elton Influenced Silent Spring
(/isis/citation/CBB001251548/)
Book
Allitt, Patrick;
(2014)
A Climate of Crisis: America in the Age of Environmentalism
(/isis/citation/CBB001422331/)
Article
Frederick Rowe Davis;
(2019)
Pesticides and the Perils of Synecdoche in the History of Science and Environmental History
(/isis/citation/CBB309063848/)
Article
Gay, Hannah;
(2012)
Before and after Silent Spring: From Chemical Pesticides to Biological Control and Integrated Pest Management---Britain, 1945--1980
(/isis/citation/CBB001210095/)
Article
Buhs, Joshua Blu;
(2002)
The Fire Ant Wars: Nature and Science in the Pesticide Controversies of the Late Twentieth Century
(/isis/citation/CBB000203378/)
Article
Kinkela, David;
(2009)
The Ecological Landscapes of Jane Jacobs and Rachel Carson
(/isis/citation/CBB001030900/)
Article
Hecht, David K.;
(2012)
How to Make a Villain: Rachel Carson and the Politics of Anti-Environmentalism
(/isis/citation/CBB001251549/)
Thesis
McCord, Peter Adams;
(2003)
Green Ideas, Green Vietnam: Environmentalism in the Sixties
(/isis/citation/CBB001562009/)
Article
Davis, Frederick R.;
(2012)
Silent Spring after 50 years
(/isis/citation/CBB001251546/)
Book
Murphy, Priscilla Coit;
(2005)
What a Book Can Do: The Publication and Reception of Silent Spring
(/isis/citation/CBB000640534/)
Book
John Francis;
(2009)
Planetwalker: 22 Years of Walking. 17 Years of Silence.
(/isis/citation/CBB182503730/)
Book
Nicole Seymour;
(2018)
Bad Environmentalism: Irony and Irreverence in the Ecological Age
(/isis/citation/CBB666319608/)
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