Earth Days: Ecology Comes of Age as a Science

Earth Days details the events of the revolution in ecology initiated by the publication of Silent Spring from the perspective of someone involved in its events. It is a book having to do with ideas and the people who held them. Earth Days starts with Rachel Carson and the other writers and scientists whose words caught the attention of the public on Earth Day. It tells about the Odum brothers from the corn pone South, champions of the ecosystem idea, Robert MacArthur, the “James Dean” of ecology, and Jared Diamond, who tried to be his successor and in the effort set off a war in ecology. It tells about Dan Simberloff, who rebelled against the science inspired by his own mentors in that war. It tells about Paul Ehrlich and David Pimentel, for whom no environmental issue was beyond their expertise. It also tells about Gene Likens, who looked and acted more like an insurance salesman, yet found a way through the swirling controversies in his science to put it to good practical use. There are, of course, many others, each trying to find their own personal way in the broad, important science that is ecology. Earth Days details that revolution from the perspective of someone involved in its events. It also gives the reader the necessary background to follow the most technical material. Difficult material becomes easy, lively reading. –Howard V. Cornell (University of Delaware): “Fantastic! It kept me up all night. I couldn’t put it down.” –Nicholas Gotelli (University of Vermont): “It is very lively and fun to read.” –Daniel Simberloff (University of Tennessee): “…an excellent and engaging writer…appears to be a really major and interesting book.” –David Pimentel (Cornell University): “…fantastic job of writing to capture the views of numerous ecologists!” –Gene Likens (New York Botanical Garden): “I learned some things about myself.”