[ENVIRONMENTALISM] CARSON, Rachel (text); DARLING, Lois and Louis (illustrations)

Silent Spring

Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1962. First Edition. First Printing. Octavo (22cm); hunter green cloth, with titles stamped in gilt on spine and front cover; yellow topstain; patterned endpapers; dustjacket; xvi,368pp; illus. Some foxing to upper edge of textblock, else internally fresh, with some light wear to spine ends; Near Fine. Dustjacket is unclipped (priced $5.00), gently spine-sunned, showing modest shelfwear, some dust-soil to rear panel, several tiny tears and attendant creases, with a few small splash marks to spine and front panel, noticeable only on verso; Very Good or better.

The undisputed heavyweight champ of environmental blockbusters – a book that exploded the "Better Living Through Chemistry" myth of post-war America and launched an entirely new field of activism that would help to define the second half of the century. Silent Spring documented the harms caused by sythetic pesticides, specifically DDT, on the environment. The book was a source of fierce criticism from the chemical industry, and became a rallying point for a new social movement in the 1960s. On the Boston Public Library's (and most others') list of the 100 Most Influential Books of the 20th Century. 88017.

Price: $500.00

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