New York Times bestselling author and acclaimed presidential historian Douglas Brinkley chronicles the rise of environmental activism during the Long Sixties (1960–1973), telling the story of an indomitable generation that saved the natural world under the leadership of John F. Kennedy, Lyndon Johnson, and Richard Nixon.
“This is not only a majestic work of history; it is an urgent call for our time.”—Doris Kearns Goodwin, Pulitzer Prize–winning historian
“Our foremost chronicler of how presidents shape our environmental policy.”—Walter Isaacson
With the detonation of the Trinity in the New Mexico desert in 1945, the United States took control of Earth’s destiny. During the early Cold War years, the federal government routinely tested nuclear devices. Not only was nuclear fallout a public health menace, but radioactive materials contaminated entire ecosystems. During the 1950s, an unprecedented postwar economic boom took hold, with America becoming the world’s leading hyperindustrial and military giant. But this historic prosperity came at a heavy cost: oceans began to die, wilderness vanished, the insecticide DDT poisoned ecosystems, wildlife perished, and chronic smog blighted major cities.
In Silent Spring Revolution, Douglas Brinkley pays tribute to the crusaders who combatted the mauling of the natural world in the Long Sixties, including Rachel Carson, Stewart Udall, William O. Douglas, and Cesar Chavez. Brinkley explores how Carson’s book Silent Spring launched an ecological revolution that inspired landmark legislation signed by three presidents—such as the Wilderness Act (1964), the Clean Air Acts (1963 and 1970), and the Endangered Species Acts (1966, 1969, and 1973)—and explores other crucial events, from the Santa Barbara oil spill to the Great Lakes preservation to the first Earth Day.
With the United States grappling with climate change and resource exhaustion, Silent Spring Revolution reminds us that a new generation can save the planet from ruin.
 
Contributor Bio(s)
 
Douglas Brinkley is the Katherine Tsanoff Brown Chair in Humanities and Professor of History at Rice University, presidential historian for the New-York Historical Society, trustee of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library, and a contributing editor at Vanity Fair. The Chicago Tribune dubbed him “America’s New Past Master.” He is the recipient of such distinguished environmental leadership prizes as the Frances K. Hutchison Medal (Garden Club of America), the Robin W. Winks Award for Enhancing Public Understanding of National Parks (National Parks Conservation Association), and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Lifetime Heritage Award. His book The Great Deluge: Hurricane Katrina, New Orleans, and the Mississippi Gulf Coast received the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award. He was awarded a Grammy for Presidential Suite and is the recipient of seven honorary doctorates in American studies. His two-volume, annotated Nixon Tapes won the Arthur S. Link–Warren F. Kuehl Prize. He lives in Austin, Texas, with his wife and three children.