| On a Farther Shore: The Life and Legacy of Rachel Carson Contributor(s): Souder, William (Author), Drummond, David (Read by) |
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ISBN: 147082664X ISBN-13: 9781470826642 Publisher: Blackstone Audiobooks OUR PRICE: $29.66 Product Type: Compact Disc - Other Formats Published: September 2012 |
| Additional Information |
| BISAC Categories: - Biography & Autobiography | Environmentalists & Naturalists - Nature | Environmental Conservation & Protection - General - Biography & Autobiography | Women |
| Dewey: B |
| Physical Information: 1.2" H x 5.3" W x 5.8" (0.70 lbs) |
| Themes: - Sex & Gender - Feminine - Topical - Ecology |
| Descriptions, Reviews, Etc. |
| Publisher Description: Published on the fiftieth anniversary of her seminal book, Silent Spring, here is an indelible new portrait of Rachel Carson, founder of the modern environmental movement. She loved the ocean and wrote three books about its mysteries, including the international bestseller The Sea around Us. But it was with her fourth book, Silent Spring, that this unassuming biologist transformed our relationship with the natural world. Rachel Carson began work on Silent Spring in the late 1950s, when a dizzying array of synthetic pesticides had come into use. Leading this chemical onslaught was the insecticide DDT, whose inventor had won a Nobel Prize for its discovery. Effective against crop pests as well as insects that transmitted human diseases such as typhus and malaria, DDT had at first appeared safe. But as its use expanded, alarming reports surfaced of collateral damage to fish, birds, and other wildlife. Silent Spring was a chilling indictment of DDT and its effects, which were lasting, widespread, and lethal. Published in 1962, Silent Spring shocked the public and forced the government to take action--despite a withering attack on Carson from the chemicals industry. The book awakened the world to the heedless contamination of the environment and eventually led to the establishment of the Environmental Protection Agency and to the banning of DDT and a host of related pesticides. By drawing frightening parallels between dangerous chemicals and the then-pervasive fallout from nuclear testing, Carson opened a fault line between the gentle ideal of conservation and the more urgent new concept of environmentalism. Elegantly written and meticulously researched, On a Farther Shore reveals a shy yet passionate woman more at home in the natural world than in the literary one that embraced her. William Souder also writes sensitively of Carson's romantic friendship with Dorothy Freeman and of Carson's death from cancer in 1964. This extraordinary biography captures the essence of one of the great reformers of the twentieth century. |
Contributor Bio(s): Souder, William: - William Souder has written for many prominent newspapers and magazines and is the author of A Plague of Frogs, a book about the investigation of outbreaks of deformed frogs across North America a decade ago, and Under a Wild Sky, a biography of John James Audubon and a Pulitzer Prize finalist. He lives in Grant, Minnesota. Drummond, David: -David Drummond has made his living as an actor for over twenty-five years, appearing on stages large and small throughout the country and in Seattle, Washington, his hometown. He has narrated over thirty audiobooks, in genres ranging from current political commentary to historical nonfiction, fantasy, military, thrillers, and humor. He received an AudioFile Earphones Award for his first audiobook, Love 'Em or Lose 'Em: Getting Good People to Stay. When not narrating, he keeps busy writing plays and stories for children. |