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The Gentle Subversive: Rachel Carson, Silent Spring, and the Rise of the Environmental Movement
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 e...more
Lytle explores the e...more
Hardcover, 277 pages
Published
February 1st 2007
by Oxford University Press, USA
(first published January 17th 2007)
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I read this one for school. Allow me to preface my comments by saying that non-fiction isn't a huge draw for me, and biographies don't capture and hold my attention well. Even though biographies are still stories an anecdotes from the life of a person, they've never had the same kind of magic as fiction does for me. Maybe it has something to do with knowing that what's being told has already happened and it's not just unwinding before you like a magical carpet is disillusioning, or maybe its tha...more
This biography of Rachel Carson focuses on her writing, beginning with pieces she wrote at age 11 for a children’s nature magazine and culminating with the publication of the environmentalist classic “Silent Spring.” Author Mark Hamilton Lytle uses chapters named for the four seasons to show her development as a writer; each season corresponds to a book. The analogy works well. “Under the Sea-Wind” (spring) was not overly popular, being largely overshadowed by WWII. “The Sea Around Us” (summer)...more
Great book! Romanticized a little bit, but I had never heard of Rachel Carson before picking this one up, an that surprises me knowing the contributions she made to our understanding of the environment and the impact we humans have on it.
This was pretty interesting, but the writer seemed to delve into seriously minor details at various parts of the book. Overall, however, I thought is was well written and creative.
Reading this book made me check out 4 of Rachael's own works. Someone we all know about but I hadn't ever really read. She was a very unique and amazing woman.
A little dry and academic.
An interesting read...Carson was a powerful writer and a powerful woman who really believed in the courage of her convictions and yet maintained a very traditional lifestyle while challenging some long-held traditional beliefs in science and regarding the environment...made me want to read more about her and the environment...I found the writing style somewhat tedious...a little hard to get through
A good introduction to both Rachel Carson and the ecological movement in the U.S.
It was an inspiration to learn the driving force behind Carson's writing, and will encourage me to read her other books. I had only been aware of the last, Silent Spring. I recommend this to anyone embarking upon the "Green" movement, or anyone wanting to hear a courageous story of a woman overcoming cancer to fulfill her driving destiny.
This is a very well-written book focusing on Carson as a writer. It is a wonderful portrait of her as a person and a short but well-informed history of the environmental movement in the US as well. Highly recommended.
May 12, 2008
Fondren Library
marked it as to-read
Recommended to Fondren by:
Bob Sabin
Shelves:
summer-leisure-reading
Fondren Has This Book: QH31 .C33 L98 2007
Provides an interesting account of the development of Rachel Carson as a writer and as an eventual spokesperson for the environmental movement of the 1960s.
Provides an interesting account of the development of Rachel Carson as a writer and as an eventual spokesperson for the environmental movement of the 1960s.
Started reading, had surgery. Had to take back to library. Try again later. Oh, well.
May 19, 2013
Eileen Charbonneau
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