书名：Silent Spring 寂静的春天
难度：Lexile蓝思阅读指数1340
作者：Rachel Carson蕾切尔·卡逊
出版社名称：Penguin Classics
出版时间：2000
语种：英文
ISBN：9780141184944
商品尺寸：12.9 x 1.5 x 19.8 cm
包装：平装
页数：324

Silent Spring《寂静的春天》是美国海洋生物学家蕾切尔·卡逊的代表作，该书以寓言开头，向我们描绘了一个美丽村庄的突变。并从陆地到海洋，从海洋到天空，全面地揭示了化学农药的危害，是一本公认的开启了世界环境运动的奠基之作，它既贯穿着严谨求实的科学理性精神，又充溢着敬畏生命的人文情怀，被认为其引发的轰动比达尔文的《物种起源》都要大。本书为Penguin Classics推出的英文版，适合有一定英文基础的自热文学爱好者或英语学习者阅读。
推荐理由：
1.全球首部倡导环境保护的经典著作，50年以来全球极具影响的著作，不可不看；
2.被视为全世界环境保护事业的开端，新闻工作者的必读教材，柴静推荐；
3.连续31周雄踞《纽约时报》畅销书排行榜，全球销量达2000万册；
4.企鹅经典系列，由Lord Shacketon做导言介绍，有助于读者深入了解作者及写作背景。
Now recognized as one of the most influential books of the twentieth century, Silent Spring exposed the destruction of wildlife through the widespread use of pesticides. Despite condemnation in the press and heavy-handed attempts by the chemical industry to ban the book, Rachel Carson succeeded in creating a new public awareness of the environment which led to changes in government and inspired the ecological movement.
With an introduction by Lord Shacketon
Preface by Julian Huxley and an afterword by Linda Lear
Review
“Very few books change the course of history. Those that do includeSilent Spring.” —Linda Lear, author of Rachel Carson: Witness for Nature
“Carson’s books brought ecology into popular consciousness.” —Daily Telegraph
“Rachel Carson educated a planet... One of the most effective books ever written.” —Guardian

Silent Spring《寂静的春天》一书，作者以女性作家特有的生动笔触，详尽细致地讲述了以DDT为代表的杀虫剂的广泛使用，给我们的环境所造成的巨大的、难以逆转的危害。正是这个指向人类自身的潜在而又深远的威胁，让公众突然意识到环境问题十分严重，从而开启了群众性的现代环境保护运动。不仅如此，卡逊还尖锐的指出了，环境问题的深层根源在于人类对于自然的傲慢和无知，因此，她呼吁人们要重新端正对自然的态度，重新思考人类社会的发展道路问题。
Rachel Carson’s Silent Spring was first published in three serialized excerpts in the New Yorker in June of 1962. The book appeared in September of that year and the outcry that followed its publication forced the banning of DDT and spurred revolutionary changes in the laws affecting our air, land, and water. Carson’s passionate concern for the future of our planet reverberated powerfully throughout the world, and her eloquent book was instrumental in launching the environmental movement. It is without question one of the landmark books of the twentieth century.  

蕾切尔·卡逊，1907年5月27日生于匹兹堡附近的泉溪镇，1932年获约翰·霍布金斯大学生物学硕士学位，1936～1952年在美国鱼类与野生生物调查署工作。著作有《海风之下》（1941）、《我们周围的海》（1951）、《海之边缘》（1955）、《寂静的春天》（1962）。1963年入选美国艺术与科学学院院士。1964年4月14日因患病去逝。1980年被追授美国总统自由勋章。
Rachel Carson (1907-64) wanted to be a writer for as long as she could remember. Her first book, Under the Sea Wind, appeared in 1941. Silent Spring, which alerted the world to the dangers of the misuse of pesticides, was published in 1962. Carson’s articles on natural history appeared in the Atlantic Monthly, the New Yorker, Reader’s Digest and Holiday. An ardent ecologist and preservationist, Carson warned against the dumping of atomic waste at sea and predicted global warming. The Edge of the Sea, which completed her biography of the sea, is also published in Penguin Twentieth-Century Classics. Rachel Carson died of cancer at the age of 56.

Acknowledgements致谢
Author’s Note作者的话
Introduction 序
Preface前言
 1  AFable for Tomorrow明天的寓言
 2  The ObligationtoEndure忍耐的义务
 3 Elixirs of Death死神的texiaoyao
 4 Surface Waters and Underground Seas地表水和地下海
 5 Realms of the Soil土壤的王国
 6 Earth’s Green Mantle地球的绿色斗篷
 7 Needless Havoc不必要的大破坏
 8 And No Birds Sing再也没有鸟儿歌唱
 9 Rivers of Death死亡的河流
10  Indiscriminately from the Skies自天而降的灾难
11  Beyond the Dreams of the Borgias超过了波尔基业家族的梦想
12  The Human Price人类的代价
13 Through a Narrow Window通过一扇狭小的窗户
14  One in Every Four每四个中有一个
15  Nature Fights Back大自然在反抗
16 The Rumblings of an Avalanche崩溃声隆隆
17 The Other Road另外的道路
Afterword后记
List of Principal Sources主要文献来源目录
Index索引

There was once a town in the heart of America where all life seemed to live in harmony with its surroundings. The town lay in the midst of a checkerboard of prosperous farms, with fields of grain and hillsides of orchards where, in spring, white clouds of bloom drifted above the green fields. In autumn, oak and maple and birch set up a blaze of color that flamed and flickered across a backdrop of pines. Then foxes barked in the hills and deer silently crossed the fields, half hidden in the mists of the fall mornings.
Along the roads, laurel, viburnum and alder, great ferns and wildflowers delighted the traveler’s eye through much of the year. Even in winter the road- sides were places of beauty, where countless birds came to feed on the berries and on the seed heads of the dried weeds rising above the snow. The country- side was, in fact, famous for the abundance and variety of its bird life, and when the flood of migrants was pouring through in spring and fall people traveled from great distances to observe them. Others came to fish the streams, which flowed clear and cold out of the hills and contained shady pools where trout lay. So it had been from the days many years ago when the first settlers raised their houses, sank their wells, and built their barns.
Then a strange blight crept over the area and everything began to change. Someevil spell had settled on the community: mysterious maladies swept the flocks of chickens; the cattle and sheep sickened and died. Everywhere was a shadow of death. The farmers spoke of much illness among their families. In the town the doctors had become more and more puzzled by new kinds of sickness appearing among their patients. There had been several sudden and unexplained deaths, not only among adults but even among children, who would be stricken suddenly while at play and die within a few hours.