This book examines Rachel Carson's Silent Spring and its legacy as the foundation of a shift in society's approach to climate change and the environment.

Silent Spring is a watershed moment in the history of environmentalism, credited with launching the modern environmental movement. In synthesizing a jumble of scientific and medical information into a coherent argument, Carson successfully challenged major chemical industries and the idea that modern societies could and should exert mastery over nature at any cost. Her critique remains salient today. This book provides the first in-depth analysis, contextualisation and overview of Silent Spring, a critical work in the history of environmentalism, surveying its lasting impact on the environmentalist movement in the last fifty years.

"29 years ago the Bhopal tragedy…showed how right Rachel Carson was. Now the ‘elixirs of death’ come in new forms… Joni Seager's [book] is a vital and timely reminder of Rachel Carson's wake up call to humanity that a chemical war can never be won." - Dr Vandana Shiva, winner of the Alternative Nobel Prize (the Right Livelihood Award) 1993