This is a reread for me. I enjoyed every bit of this excerpt from ‘Silent Spring’. Carson is ever so eloquent in the way she weaves together haunting descriptions of nature, scientifically-informed denunciation of the use of pesticides, and a powerful call to action. An absolute icon.

Wow, this book was certainly very shocking. If you want to learn about the issues with pesticides you must read this book. I thought I knew quite a bit about them but this book really opened my eyes. There were lots of case studies/examples of just how deadly they were. Even from the tiniest drop landing on your skin. It was amazing how they even allowed them. The author looked at how these pesticides were banned across the world but not in America. I was engrossed and loved every second. I learnt so much from reading it and definitely recommend reading it.

Only the highest of praise goes out to the author and publishers for bringing us this shocking book. I will certainly be looking out for more books by this fantastic author.
The above review has already been placed on goodreads, waterstones, Google books, Barnes&noble, kobo, amazon UK where found and my blog today
https://ladyreading365.wixsite.com/website/post/man-s-war-against-nature-by-rachel-carson-penguin-5-stars under ladyreading365

For a book that is now 50 years old it is sad to see how little has changed in the way we treat the world we live in and just how prescient Carson was.

Living with a climate scientist I've been aware of a lot of manmade environmentally issues for a long time, well before they became headline news) and it was interesting to read something from the very beginning of the green movement.

The book is very readable, and shocking that it is still so relevant

This book, or rather I’d like to call it a pamphlet, is the second I’ve read in Penguin Book – Green Ideas series after The Dragonfly Will Be the Messiah by Masanobu Fukuoka. While Fukuoka’s book is deeply rooted in eastern philosophy and ideas,Rachel Carson in Man's War Against Nature invites us to discuss the catastrophic use of insecticides in the twentieth century. She begins her analysis by inviting us to dream about an imagined town in the countryside with the abundance of floral and animal species as well as prosperous farms with fields of grains and hillsides of orchards that will surely trigger any travellers to stop and admire it. The imagined town was stricken by misfortunes and maladies that caused the villagers and the creatures among them to die, something dystopian in its nature. What she describes through the fate of this imagined town is the prospective future of humanity, amidst the increasing use of insecticides after the Second World War during the time she campaigned her ideas.

Rachel Carson was mainly known as a marine biologist and conservationist, whose influential 1962 book ‘Silent Spring’ along with her other writings managed to advance global environmental movement, particularly to ban the use of DDT and other insecticides first in the United States and then in other parts of the world. Her tone in her writings is cautious, backed with her field working experience as a scientist, she brings into attention the new chemicals that had been used in what she terms as “man’s war against nature”. The chemicals that she mentions particularly found their use as insecticides after their insect-killing properties were discovered following the Second World War.

Now we could see that DDT and other insecticides have been banned in most countries following Rachel Carson’s campaign, but I imagine her ideas stirred controversies during her time. What makes her ideas enduring is perhaps her assessment about the need to consider not only human’s needs as well, but also seeing the entire ecosystem as a whole as part of what humans need to continue their existence. All creatures from the lowest to the top of the food chain are always interconnected, some chemical properties still exist even after the energy transfer has occurred several times over the course of the food chain. She describes cases of people who died unintentionally due to excessive use of chemicals to dispose pests. Even if we see that the use of insecticides has been decreased in the past few decades, we could probably also see Rachel Carson’s warning in terms of the modern use of plastics, or any product that contains carbons and their long-term effects to the environment.

This short book peeks inside man's use of pesticides in an effort to control nature itself. This is an excerpt from Silent Spring, first published in 1962, when Carson showed clearly that humans were endangering, polluting and killing not just our planet but ourselves. Despite heavy lobbying against her, Carson's book shone a light and this excerpt allows us to look back with a sinking feeling at the time we've lost, while acknowledging a great voice for change, who wrote ahead of her time.

As part of the new Penguin collection of classic ideas on the environment, this is an excerpt from Rachel Carson's Silent Spring. Written in 1962, it is as timely, powerful and relevant today. She is a wonderful writer and this is clear, erudite and moving about the impact of pesticides. A wonderful introduction to her work and will hopefully help raise awareness of her writing and of the real issues affecting the environment.

With thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for an ARC in exchange for an honest review.

Man’s War Against Nature is an excerpt from Rachel Carson’s groundbreaking book Silent Spring first published in September 1962, and although compact, it certainly packs a powerful punch within its page count. It alerted a large audience to the environmental and human dangers of indiscriminate use of pesticides, spurring revolutionary changes in the laws affecting our air, land, and water. Now recognized as one of the most influential books of the twentieth century, Silent Spring exposed the destruction of wildlife through the widespread use of pesticides. Despite condemnation in the press and heavy-handed attempts by the chemical industry to ban the book, Rachel Carson succeeded in creating a new public awareness of the environment which led to changes in government and inspired the ecological movement. It is thanks to this book, and the help of many environmentalists, that harmful pesticides such as DDT were banned from use in the US and countries around the world.

Rachel Carson (1907-64) wanted to be a writer for as long as she could remember. Her first book, Under the Sea Wind, appeared in 1941. Silent Spring, which alerted the world to the dangers of the misuse of pesticides, was published in 1962. Carson's articles on natural history appeared in the Atlantic Monthly, the New Yorker, Reader's Digest and Holiday. An ardent ecologist and preservationist, Carson warned against the dumping of atomic waste at sea and predicted global warming. The book is, sadly, still as necessary and relevant today as it was well over half a century ago and will likely catch the interest of those who are ardent advocates for both the disintegrating environment and people’s wellbeing being valued over and above company profit which is easier said that done due to the scourge of capitalism. A passionate and robust polemic on issues that should have been resolved by now and thus proving we have a very long way to go in terms of setting the situation right. Highly recommended.

4.8/5

Just finished reading this brutally honest book that was a part of the green ideas series. Many thanks to Netgalley and the publisher.

As I don't further my studies in science, to fully understand this book can be quite tricky; what with the science terms of chemicals involved and the vast types of pesticide. It took me about 9 hours to complete my reading and also note-taking. But I don't regret every hour I spent acquiring the knowledge.

Even though it's one slim book, I must say that the author has provided meticulous reports on the vile use of pesticides. And as I emerging deeper into this book it makes me so remorseful just thinking that how ignorant we can be as a human, you know? We want all the good the world has to offer and then we become super greedy to the point that we took away the share that should be owned by other inhabitants of this earth.

What I believe most of us can start to change is the way we see and how we choose which pesticide to use in our household. Rather than asking such a foolish question like, “Which one is good? By that, we meant which is the most effective -abled to provide fast killing. And since the product is hot selling, it must be good. But good for what exactly? "
We should instead replace it by asking an important question like is it environment-friendly? If yes, then the next we should ask is how to make the exposure as minimal as possible. If not, without much thinking what we did is digging our own grave.

We need to start to think of the effect of our actions in a long run. As not knowing the effect will make us produce the same result all over again and create more harm than good.

One of the twenty books in the Green Ideas series.
I enjoyed reading this book dense with facts about pesticides and its effects on the environment and people. It is tough and heartbreaking to read this, especially knowing that it was originally published in the 19060s. The beginning and end of this short book read well, however the middle was more like a technical text, which felt slightly too much like an excerpt.
I still believe this is a good start to expanding one's knowledge on chemicals being used in the environment.

3.5 rounded up to 4.

Silent Spring was a right of passage when I was a teenager in the 1980ies, so I was familiar with her work and also already knew this piece by her. It still holds, is still an uncomfortable truth and it is still a source of shame that my generation failed to do more about it.

“As Dr. C.J. Briejèr, a Dutch scientist of rare understanding has put it, ‘We are walking in nature like an elephant in the china cabinet’” (LOC 734).

A part of Penguin’s ‘Green Ideas’ collection, Rachel Carson’s work, Man’s War Against Nature is a scientifically-focused study of the disastrous and harmful effects of chemicals—and most specifically synthetic pesticides and insecticides—and the outcome of using these instead of employing the method of vegetation management of selective spraying (LOC 728). Carson was a biologist, ecologist and writer, and it’s clear that her concerns are focused on preventing environmental disasters and caring for humankind by eliminating the abundant use of harmful chemicals in pesticides.

This short text is extremely informative and educational. There are certainly moments when the content was complex. As someone who doesn’t have an academic background in science, I found the first half rich in scientific jargon and points that were quite complex. That being said, I enjoyed when Carson essentially called out people’s destruction of nature, as people are the root cause of major environmental problems—I think we’re at a point now where we can agree that her accusation is accurate. I also thoroughly enjoyed the section about soil and the ways in which chemicals penetrate soil and cause damages to biomes that have soil.
Although it’s short, I struggled to complete the short excerpt from Silent Spring (1962) because it’s quite dark—especially when I considered that this work was originally published in the early 60s and people haven’t moved away from using synthetics. Instead, people use so many products full of synthetic chemicals without giving much thought to the consequences to nature or themselves.

I highly recommend this work to anyone interested in learning about pesticides/insecticides, the environment, biology or social justice. I feel that reading this alongside nonfiction titles such as, “There’s Lead in Your Lipstick” and “Slow Death by Rubber Duck,” the play entitled, “Heroes and Saints” or the short story collection, “Nothing is as it Was” (edited by Amanda Saint) would be especially beneficial.

“Indeed, the term ‘biocide’ would be more appropriate than ‘insecticide’” (LOC 70).

Many thanks to NetGalley and Penguin for providing me with an ARC of this title in exchange for my honest review!

2.5 rounded up

Having had Rachel Carson's 1962 Silent Spring on my to read list for ages I was curious to check out an excerpt when I saw it was included in Penguin's "Green Ideas" series. This is my third book from the series after The Democracy of Species (loved this one) and The Dragonfly Will Be the Messiah (liked this a lot less).

Man's War Against Nature falls somewhere between these two. Clearly Silent Spring (and any excerpt from it) needs to be viewed in the historical and scientific context in which it was published and in how things have changed since the book was released - the book led to the nationwide ban in the US of the use of DDT for agricultural uses - and the book should be celebrated for what it helped to achieve. As a contemporary reader in 2021 with a only passing familiarity with pesticides from my days studying Biology A Level at school (admittedly some 13-14 years ago now...), I found a lot of the information presented in the book went over my head and felt quite technical for a layperson. Lots of statistics were included and it was presented in a relatively accessible way... but there really was a lot of information on the topic of various pesticides.

I'm glad I gave this a go but I have to say I'm not chomping at the bit to go and pick up Silent Spring, although I am curious to see if perhaps other chapters in the full book would interest me more than this excerpt did.

I think this works well as part of a series on environmental writing - a crucial topic and these Penguin editions are very appealing. I think this is a great way of bringing people to Rachel Carson's writing. The e-proof doesn't have anymore information on Silent Spring though - I would have liked to see something that points readers towards the book that this is excerpted from, along with some context about her work. (I am a Carson devotee though, so I may be overthinking it!) I look forward to reading some of the other books in this series. They are all very 'pick-up-able'.

"Man has forgotten his origins and is blind to the very conditions that are more essential to his survival..."

Carson, who was a marine biologist and activist, dedicated a lot of her life to the study of synthetic pesticides and their damaging impact on the environment. In this short story, we see her explorations into how man-made pesticides have destroyed wildlife and have been a contributing factor in the ongoing climate crisis. Very informative and concise, she explains the obvious and less obvious effects they can have on the Earth and the chain of events this can trigger. Clear, informative and well ahead of it's time, this delves into one specific area that many of us probably haven't given much thought in the past.