On a Farther Shore; The Life and Legacy of Rachel Carson

New York: Crown Publishers, 2012. First Edition [stated]. Third printing [stated]. Hardcover. Good/Good. [12], 496, [4] pages. Illustrations. Notes. Bibliography. Index. Published on the 50th anniversary of Silent Spring. DJ has scuff in front and damp signs and soiling on spine. Minor stain at bottom of cover near DJ staining. Some edge soiling. Inscribed by the author on half-title. William Souder is an award-winning journalist and is the author of three books: Under a Wild Sky: John James Audubon and the Making of The Birds of America, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, A Plague of Frogs (Hyperion, 2000), which follows the investigation of outbreaks of deformed frogs across North America, and On a Farther Shore: The Life and Legacy of Rachel Carson (Crown, 2012), which was published on the 50th anniversary of Carson's Silent Spring and was a New York Times notable book of 2012. He lives in Grant, Minnesota. Rachel Carson loved the ocean and wrote three books about its mysteries. But it was with her fourth book, Silent Spring, that this unassuming biologist transformed our relationship with the natural world. Silent Spring was an indictment of DDT and other pesticides that until then had been hailed as safe and wondrously effective. Carson sifted through the evidence, documenting with clarity the damage to fish, birds, and other wildlife; revealing the effects of the chemicals to be lasting, widespread, and lethal. Silent Spring shocked the public and forced the government to take action. It eventually led to the establishment of the EPA and to the banning of DDT. Carson opened a fault line between the gentle ideal of conservation and the more urgent new concept of environmentalism. Meticulously researched, On a Farther Shore reveals a shy yet passionate woman at home in the natural world. This extraordinary work captures the essence of one of the great reformers of the twentieth century.