The current vogue for poisons has failed utterly to take into account these most fundamental
    considerations.  As crude as the cave man's club, the chemical barrage has been hurled against the
    fabric of life--a fabric on the one hand delicate and destructible, on the other miraculously tough and
    resilient, and capable of striking back in unexpected ways.  These extraordinary capacities of life
    have been ignored by the practitioners of chemical control who have brought to their task no
    "high-minded orientation", no humility before the vast forces with which they tamper.

    The "control of nature" is a phrase conceived in arrogance, born of the Neanderthal age of biology
    and philosophy, when it was supposed that nature exists for the convenience of man.  The concepts
    and practices of applied entomology for the most part date from that Stone Age of science.  It is
    our alarming misfortune that so primitive a science has armed itself with the most modern and
    terrible weapons, and that in turning them against the insects it has also turned them against the
    earth.
                        -Rachel Carson, Silent Spring

    Despite the power of Carson's argument, despite actions like the banning of DDT in the United
    States, the environmental crisis has grown worse, not better. Perhaps the rate at which the disaster
    is increasing has been slowed, but that itself is a disturbing thought. Since the publication of Silent
    Spring, pesticide use on farms alone has doubled to 1.1 billion tons a year, and production of these
    dangerous chemicals has increased by 400 percent. We have banned certain pesticides at home, but
    we still produce them and export them to other countries. This not only involves a readiness to
    profit by selling others a hazard we will not accept for ourselves; it also reflects an elemental failure
    to comprehend that the laws of science do not observe the boundaries of politics. Poisoning the
    food chain anywhere ultimately poisons the food chain everywhere.
           -Al Gore

It is the premise of Silent Spring that the Age of Chemicals represents an impending disaster for mankind, that use and overuse of chemical compounds is going to cause enormous health problems by both direct contact and as they work their way up the food chain.  Carson seized on declining bird populations as an early warning sign that the effects were already being felt in animal populations.  She used the metaphor of a Silent Spring, a Spring without birdsong, to convey the horror of where we were headed.  As Al Gore laments above, her warnings were largely unheeded and the use of chemicals has grown rapidly.  So, we should all be dead right?

That's the problem with calling this one of the "Best" books of the century.  The title "Best" should indicate that the book conveys some fundamental and timeless human truths. It would be more accurate to say that Silent Spring is a "great" book.  Even then, Silent Spring is undoubtedly an important and influential book, but it is great only in the sense that Thomas Malthus' Essay on the Principle of Population (1798) was great (or The Communist Manifesto and The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and Mein Kampf for that matter).  It is great because it had a profound influence on attitudes and actions, despite the fact that it was completely wrong. At the end of a Century that has seen the widespread use of chemicals accompany tremendous lengthening of human life spans, deep cuts in infant mortality rates and the revival of most endangered species, isn't it time to acknowledge that the argument of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring was a complete fallacy?  Apparently the intelligentsia doesn't think so.

(Reviewed:)

Grade: (F) Orrin C. Judd

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