The result was Silent Spring (1962), which brought environmental concerns to an unprecedented share of the American people. Late in the 1950s, Carson turned her attention to conservation, especially environmental problems that she believed were caused by synthetic pesticides. This sea trilogy explores the whole of ocean life from the shores to the depths. Her next book, The Edge of the Sea, and the reissued version of her first book, Under the Sea Wind, were also bestsellers. National Book Award, recognition as a gifted writer, and financial security. Her widely praised 1951 bestseller The Sea Around Us won her a U.S. Bureau of Fisheries, and became a full-time nature writer in the 1950s. Rachel Louise Carson (– April 14, 1964) was an American marine biologist and conservationist whose book Silent Spring and other writings are credited with advancing the global environmental movement.Ĭarson began her career as an aquatic biologist in the U.S. Anyone who loves the sea, or who is concerned about our natural environment, will want to read, or re-read, this classic work. Today, with the oceans endangered by the dumping of medical waste and ecological disasters such as the Exxon oil spill in Alaska, the gradual death of the Great Barrier Reef, and the melting of the polar ice caps, Carson's book provides a timely reminder of both the fragility and the centrality of the ocean and the life thatĪbounds within it. The seas sustain human life and imperil it. Carson's genius for evoking the power and primacy of the world's bodies of water, combining the cosmic and the intimate, remains almost unmatched: the newly formed Earth cooling beneath an endlessly overcast sky the centuries of nonstop rain that created the oceans giant squids battling sperm whales hundreds of fathoms below the surface the power of the tides moving 100 billion tons of water daily in one bay alone the seismic waves known as tsunamis that periodically remind us of the oceans' overwhelmingly destructive power. The Sea Around Us remains as fresh today as when it first appeared over six decades ago. Ultimately it sold well over a million copies, was translated into 28 languages, inspired an Academy Award-winning documentary, and won both the National Book Award and the John Burroughs Medal. Rachel Carson's ability to combine scientific insight with poetic prose catapulted her book to the top of The New York Times best-seller list, where it remained for more than a year and a half. Originally published in 1951, The Sea Around Us is one of the most influential books ever written about the natural world.
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