Rachel Carson
1907 – 1964 · United States · Biology, Literature
Silent Spring launched the environmental movement and got DDT banned.
Index entry
Rachel Carson is currently a short index entry. The research desk can draft the full profile — achievements, works, living legacy and what is documented about the family line.
Expand this profileTalks and interviews
Continuity of ideas
Who shaped Rachel Carson, and who they shaped
Inherited from1
- Alexander von Humboldt
1769 – 1859 · Biology, Astronomy
Carson's ecological writing descends from Humboldt's picture of nature as a connected web.
Passed the work to4
- Arne Næss
1912 – 2009 · Philosophy, Environment
Deep ecology takes Carson's warning and turns it into a philosophy of intrinsic value.
- Mario Molina
1943 – 2020 · Chemistry
The atmospheric-harm argument Carson made for pesticides Molina made for CFCs.
- Vandana Shiva
1952 · Philosophy, Environment
Shiva's seed and pesticide campaigns extend Carson's case into the global South.
- Wangari Maathai
1940 – 2011 · Peace, Biology
Silent Spring's civic ecology is the template for the Green Belt Movement's organising.
Sources and references
Numbered markers in the text above point to the entries below. Each links to a primary document, archival collection or scholarly reference where the claim about Rachel Carson can be checked.
- 1.Primary texts and first editions by or about Rachel Carson
Internet Archive · Primary source
- 2.Catalogued holdings and archival finding aids for Rachel Carson
WorldCat (OCLC) · Archive
Nearby in the annals
Antonie van Leeuwenhoek
1632 – 1723Ground lenses in a draper's shop and discovered the microbial world.
Benjamin Franklin
1706 – 1790Electricity, bifocals, and the American public sphere.
Carl Linnaeus
1707 – 1778Binomial nomenclature: every species on Earth still carries his two-name system.