Description
Book SynopsisWhy - in the face of dire warnings, rising expense, and declining effectiveness - do we cling to our chemicals? Michelle Mart wondered. Her book, a cultural history of pesticide use in postwar America, offers an answer.
Trade ReviewWhy did pesticide use soar despite warnings of costs? Michelle Mart suggests that the answer lies in the stories Americans have told themselves about progress, modernity, and better living through chemistry. Did love for these ideals blind Americans to flaws in the objects of their affection? Read this book to find out."" - Edmund Russell, author of
War and Nature: Fighting Humans and Insects with Chemicals from World War I to Silent Spring""
Pesticides, a Love Story offers a rich narrative describing how chemical pesticides became so ubiquitous in American culture and the global environment. Astute and dogged research make for a conceptually strong synthesis, which reveals the roots of the American love affair with chemical pesticides, while chronicling how this affection grew over time."" - David Kinkela, author of
DDT and the American Century: Global Health, Environmental Politics, and the Pesticide That Changed the WorldTable of Contents
- Introduction
- 1. Falling in Love: The Golden Age of Synthetic Pesticides
- 2. Trouble in Paradise: The USDA and the Rise of Critical Voices
- 3. Breakup? The Cultural Impact of Rachel Carson’ Silent Spring
- 4. Foreign Affairs: How Pesticides Could Help Americans Feed the World and Win a War
- 5. The Twenty-Year Itch: Activists, Experts, and the Regulatory Era
- 6. Love Is Blind: Chemical Disasters at Home and Abroad
- 7. Recommitment: Endocrine Disruptors, GMOs, and Organic Food
- Conclusion
- Acknowledgment
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Index
