The Gentle Subversive: Rachel Carson, Silent Spring, and the Rise of the Environmental Movement

by Mark H. Lytle

Book Overview

Rachel Carson's Silent Spring antagonized some of the most powerful interests in the nation--including the farm block and the agricultural chemical industry--and helped launch the modern environmental movement. In The Gentle Subversive, Mark Hamilton Lytle offers a compact life of Carson, illuminating the road that led to this vastly influential book.
Lytle explores the evolution of Carson's ideas about nature, her love for the sea, her career...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0195172469
• ISBN13: 9780195172461
• Release Date: February 2007
• Publisher: Oxford University Press, USA
• Length: 288 Pages
• Weight: 0.74 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.8" x 5.0"

Customer Reviews

A gem

Mr. Lytle has written a very compelling biography of the gentle subversive. I was drawn to read this well-written biography of Rachel Carson from the title alone! I didn't know anything about her, except that she was the author of Silent Spring, which I have not read. Controversies aside, I imagine she must have been an amazing person to know. That she was able to support her family, as well as nurse them through their illnesses until their deaths--with no outside help, throughout her career, AND also battle cancer along with the side effects of radiation, is heroic in and of itself. I admire that Carson managed to marry her passions of writing and nature in her lifetime, publishing several books despite the ceaseless personal obstacles around every corner. Even more impressive is the fact that she stood her ground on issues important to her, in a time when women were few in the sciences--let alone the working world, and that she wasn't afraid to face the powers that be in industry and government. Rachel Carson was a thinking woman who wanted the public to be aware of the beauty around them, as well as the damage that could be done by injudicious use of chemicals. This was truly enjoyable, informative and short!

A Beautiful Tribute to the Life and Legacy of Rachel Carson

Mark Lytle does fine justice to the legacy of Rachel Carson in this well researched summary of her early life, upbringing, education, professional experiences, evolution of her writing and publishing culminating with the struggles to write and publish her most potent and last book, "Silent Spring", a dire warning of how deadly pesticide and herbicide assaults were damaging the health of ecosystems and non-targeted life forms including humans and which many proffer, launched the modern age of environmentalism. Lytle continues Carson's beautiful legacy in his "Epilogue" and "Afterword". Packed with an abundance of notes, citations and bibliography, this little book gives one a huge sense of awe and admiration for Carson's perseverance and dedication to educate the world about the interconnectedness and beauty of Nature and to cultivate a sense of responsibility and good stewardship.