RACHEL CARSON: A Crusading Environmentalist Cover and interior of SILENT SPRING, 1963 "There was once a town in the heart of America where all life seemed to live in harmony with its surroundings.... The roadsides, once so attractive, were now lined with browned and withered vegetation as though swept by fire. These, too, were silent, deserted by all living things. Even the streams were now lifeless.... No witchcraft, no enemy action had silenced the rebirth of new life in this stricken world. The people had done it to themselves." -- Rachel Carson, SILENT SPRING