Courage for the Earth: Writers, Scientists, and Activists Celebrate the Life and Writing of Rachel Carson

For environmentally critical times, Courage for the Earth is a centennial appreciation of Rachel Carson's brave life and transformative writing

Rachel Carson's lyrical, popular books about the sea, including her best-selling The Sea Around Us, set a standard for nature writing. By the late 1950s, Carson was the most respected science writer in America.

She completed Silent Spring (1962) against formidable personal odds, and with it shaped a powerful social movement that has altered the course of history. In Silent Spring, Carson asserted that "the right of the citizen to be secure in his own home against the intrusion of poisons applied by other persons" must surely be a basic human right. She was the first to challenge the moral vacuity of a government that refused to take responsibility for or to acknowledge evidence of environmental damage.

In this volume, today's foremost scientists and writers give compelling evidence that Carson's transformative insights -- her courage for the earth -- are giving a new generation of activists the inspiration they need to move consumers, industry, and government to action.

Contributors include John Elder, Al Gore, John Hay, Freeman House, Linda Lear, Robert Michael Pyle, Janisse Ray, Sandra Steingraber, Terry Tempest Williams, and E. O. Wilson