Here, with the precision of a scientist and the simplicity of a fable, Rachel Carson reveals how man-made pesticides have destroyed wildlife, creating a world of polluted streams and silent songbirds. This is an extract from Silent Spring, which was first published in 1962.
This book is part of Green Ideas, a series of twenty short books from Penguin Classics that brings you the ideas that have changed the way we think and talk about the living Earth.
Rachel Carson (1907-1964) was a marine biologist whose 1962 book Silent Spring brought ecology into public consciousness and spurred revolutionary changes to environmental law.