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.