Set your time machine for the early 1960s and get ready to take notes for what is likely the most easily understood chemistry lecture ever delivered. Professor Carson is at the podium — the world is her classroom.
Read "Elixirs of Death" in Silent Spring
Carson presents one of the earliest broad treatments of environmental causes of cancer. She was, herself, suffering from breast cancer while writing this text, though she does not reveal the fact.
Read "One in Every Four" in Silent Spring
We learn of our failure to eradicate insect pests through the use of broad-spectrum chemicals; how, in fact, these same chemicals have often worsened the problem or created new ones. We are introduced to non-violent biological controls, now known as integrated pest management, and we learn of economic entomologists who continue to develop and market weapons of chemical warfare against our greatest enemy: bugs.
Read "Nature Fights Back" in Silent Spring
Carson is nearly swept away in her veneration of poisons coming out of the biologist's laboratory rather than the chemist's — especially the andricides — but she recovers to emphasize natural, non-violent methods of insect control, finally leaving us with one of the most important statements of environmental philosophy ever written.
Read "The Other Road" in Silent Spring
