The Public Reception of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring: Rationality, Spirituality, and Interpretations of Nature

The publication in 1962 of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring was a turning point in the politics of pesticides. While the most important element in the transformation of American agriculture in the second half of the twentieth century had been the development of the synthetic pesticide industry, before 1962, there was little public understanding of the costs of that transformation. Carson's book sparked a public debate about the dangers of pesticides that were blanketing crops, and making their way through the natural environment and the food chain. While the eventual impact of Silent Spring cannot be disputed, it met a wide variety of reactions upon publication. Those who lauded the book and its author embraced her holistic vision of nature and humankind with its spiritual overtones. Those who criticized the book questioned the qualifications of the author, and her seeming challenge to the rationality of modern science. The dividing line between these two perspectives is not as rigid as it might appear at first glance. This presentation examines the reception and legacy of Rachel Carson and Silent Spring in the context of how nature was rhetorically constructed from both a spiritual and rational perspective.