Rachel Carson

December 1, 2020
Consummate and versatile reference author Snodgrass applies her discerning organizational and thematic skills to the life and work of world-changing marine biologist, ecologist, and writer Rachel Carson, whom she describes as "endowed with a reverence for life." An invaluable and revealing month-by-month chronology documents how, as a fourth-grader, Carson was already conducting fieldwork, being published, and winning writing prizes. The trajectory of Carson's career as a steadily promoted government scientist was exceptional for a woman in the 1930s, as was her sustained literary output as the ""mother of modern environmentalism,"" from government brochures to scholarly papers, newspaper and magazine articles, and the exquisite, best-selling books that awakened the public to the glory and the vulnerability of the biosphere. Here, too, are her courageous battles with severe health problems and hostile adversity to her campaign against pesticides. Carson's life and oeuvre are analyzed with a specificity she would have admired in 107 alphabetically arranged topics, including climate change, mutagens, pollution, and whales, followed by a glossary. Snodgrass' expert resource "explicates and honors Rachel Carson as an ethicist for all time."

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