Rachel Carson and Her Sisters: Extraordinary Women Who Have Shaped America’s Environment

Musil (Hope for a Heated Planet) offers a valuable history of noteworthy female American environmentalists, though readers will have to first make it through a cringe-worthy explanation of his discovery that many women have played crucial roles in raising awareness of environmental issues. The book’s most important contribution is its emphasis on the accomplishments of figures like nature writer Florence Merriam Bailey, ecology pioneer Ellen Swallow Richards, and naturalist/activist Terry Tempest Williams. They are Carson’s intellectual sisters, and Musil presents them in chronological order, beginning with the 19th-century’s first popular nature writer, Susan Fenimore Cooper. The careers of the women presented in the first two chapters are dutifully linked to Carson’s accomplishments, though readers unfamiliar with the Silent Spring author have to wait until the third chapter for a cohesive discussion of her career. The book’s second half focuses on Carson’s successors. In addition to Williams, there is Sandra Steingraber, who investigated the link between pesticides and cancer, and Devra Davis, who made feminist analyses of industrial pollution. Musil’s work comes alive in this second half, his choices of influential female environmentalists more assured and better connected to Carson and her work. The book is odd and uneven, but with enough quirks to make the reading worthwhile. Illus. (Apr.)