When DDT became available for civilian use in 1945, there were only a few people who expressed second thoughts about this new miracle compound. Its inventor was awarded the Nobel Prize. troops while being used as an effective delousing powder in Europe. Developed in 1939, it first distinguished itself during World War II, clearing South Pacific islands of malaria-causing insects for U.S. Unlike most pesticides, whose effectiveness is limited to destroying one or two types of insects, DDT was capable of killing hundreds of different kinds at once. Although she rarely used the term, Carson held an ecological view of nature, describing in precise yet poetic language the complex web of life that linked mollusks to seabirds to the fish swimming in the ocean's deepest and most inaccessible reaches.ĭDT, the most powerful pesticide the world had ever known, exposed nature's vulnerability. Her books Under the Sea Wind, The Sea Around Us (which stayed on the New York Times best-seller list for 86 weeks), and The Edge of the Sea were hymns to the interconnectedness of nature and all living things. 'Things go out of kilter'Ĭarson was happiest writing about the strength and resilience of natural systems. The educational brochures she wrote for FWS, as well as her published books and magazine articles, were characterized by meticulous research and a poetic evocation of her subject. A native of rural Pennsylvania, she had grown up with an enthusiasm for nature matched only by her love of writing and poetry. Fish and Wildlife Service, or FWS, was uniquely equipped to create so startling and inflammatory a book. Carson, a renowned nature author and a former marine biologist with the U.S.

Silent spring published