Synopses & Reviews
Praised for its ability to kill insects effectively and cheaply and reviled as an ecological hazard, DDT continues to engender passion across the political spectrum as one of the world's most controversial chemical pesticides. In
DDT and the American Century, David Kinkela chronicles the use of DDT around the world from 1941 to the present with a particular focus on the United States, which has played a critical role in encouraging the global use of the pesticide.
The banning of DDT in the United States in 1972 is generally regarded as a signal triumph for the American environmental movement. Yet DDT's function as a tool of U.S. foreign policy and its use in international development projects designed to solve problems of disease and famine made it an integral component of the so-called American Century. The varying ways in which scientists, philanthropic foundations, corporations, national governments, and transnational institutions assessed and adjudicated the balance of risks and benefits of DDT within and beyond America's borders, Kinkela argues, demonstrates the gap that existed between global and U.S. perspectives on DDT. DDT and the American Century offers a unique approach to understanding modern environmentalism in a global context.
Review
"Readers interested in the environment, public health, and international relations will find this book particularly timely. . . . A relevant and useful addition."
-Library Journal
Review
"This is a valuable book about a controversy that is still of critical importance. Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through professionals; general readers."
-Choice
Review
"[Kinkela] presents DDT as a useful product with undesirable long-term ecological effects, requiring careful judgment about when to use it."
-Foreign Affairs
Review
"[Kinkela] has proved his fluency in intellectual, social, cultural, and policy history."
-Environmental History
Review
"A valuable contribution to international environmental and public health history."
-Journal of American History
Review
"A welcome addition to the literature not only for scholars across many disciplines but also general readers."--
-Journal of Interdisciplinary History
Review
"A well-written and interesting book. Environmental scientists, chemists, legal scholars, and historians from all perspectives would benefit from reading this book."
-Chemical &Engineering News
Review
"Kinkela untangles several DDT-related themes. . . . [and] examines each thread in a way that reveals an overarching tension between the ideals underlying Henry Luce's notion of the 'American century' and the limits of technology."
-Technology and Culture
Review
"An excellent monograph. . . . Everything a reader interested in science and its cultural contexts could want."
-Isis
About the Author
David Kinkela is assistant professor of history at the State University of New York-Fredonia.