The Franklin D. Roosevelt

Presidential Library and Museum

and the Home of Franklin D. Roosevelt

National Historic Site

present an author talk and book signing

with presidential historian and

Library Trustee Douglas Brinkley

author of SILENT SPRING REVOLUTION:

JOHN F. KENNEDY, RACHEL CARSON,

LYNDON JOHNSON, RICHARD NIXON,

AND THE

GREAT ENVIRONMENTAL AWAKENING

Monday, November 21, 2022

at 6:00 p.m.

In-person*:

Henry A. Wallace Center

at the FDR Library and Home

[*local health metrics permitting;

CLICK HERE to register.]

Online:

Streamed to the official FDR Library

YouTube, Twitter and Facebook accounts

HYDE PARK, NY -- The FDR Presidential Library and Museum will present an author talk and book signing with presidential historian and Library Trustee Douglas Brinkley author of SILENT SPRING REVOLUTION: JOHN F. KENNEDY, RACHEL CARSON, LYNDON JOHNSON, RICHARD NIXON, AND THE GREAT ENVIRONMENTAL AWAKENING, at 6:00 p.m. on Monday, November 21, 2022. The event will be held in the Henry A. Wallace Center at the FDR Presidential Library and Home and streamed live to the official FDR Library YouTube, Twitter and Facebook accounts. 

This is a free public event*, but registration is required for in-person attendance. CLICK HERE to register. [*local health metrics permitting]

Synopsis:

With the detonation of the Trinity explosion in the New Mexico desert in 1945, the United States took control of Earth’s destiny for the first time. After the Truman administration dropped atomic bombs on Japan to end World War II, a grim new epoch had arrived. During the early Cold War years, the federal government routinely detonated nuclear devices in the Nevada desert and the Marshall Islands. Not only was nuclear fallout a public health menace, but entire ecosystems were contaminated with radioactive materials. As an unprecedented postwar economic boom took hold, America became the world’s leading industrial and military giant -- and with this came environmental consequences.

In SILENT SPRING REVOLUTION, Douglas Brinkley pays tribute to those who combatted the impacts to the natural world in the Long Sixties: Rachel Carson (a marine biologist and author), David Brower (director of the Sierra Club), Barry Commoner (an environmental justice advocate), Coretta Scott King (an antinuclear activist), Stewart Udall (the secretary of the interior), William O. Douglas (Supreme Court justice), Cesar Chavez (a labor organizer), and other crusaders are profiled with verve and insight.

Carson’s book SILENT SPRING, published in 1962, depicted how detrimental DDT was to living creatures. The exposé launched an ecological revolution that inspired such landmark legislation as the Wilderness Act (1964), the Clean Air Acts (1963 and 1970), and the Endangered Species Acts (1966, 1969, and 1973). In intimate detail, Brinkley extrapolates on such epic events as the Donora (Pennsylvania) smog incident, JFK’s Limited Nuclear Test Ban Treaty, Great Lakes preservation, the Santa Barbara oil spill, and the first Earth Day.

Douglas Brinkley is the Katherine Tsanoff Brown Chair in Humanities and Professor of History at Rice University, presidential historian for the New-York Historical Society, trustee of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library, and a contributing editor at Vanity Fair. The Chicago Tribune dubbed him “America’s New Past Master.” He is the recipient of such distinguished environmental leadership prizes as the Frances K. Hutchison Medal (Garden Club of America), Robin W. Winks Award for Enhancing Public Understanding of National Parks (National Parks Conservation Association), and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Lifetime Heritage Award. His book THE GREAT DELUGE: HURRICANE KATRINA, NEW ORLEANS, AND THE MISSISSIPPI GULF COAST received the Robert F. Kennedy Book Award. He was awarded a Grammy for PRESIDENTIAL SUITE: EIGHT VARIATIONS ON FREEDOM and is the recipient of seven honorary doctorates in American studies. His two-volume, annotated NIXON TAPES recently won the Arthur S. Link-Warren F. Kuehl Prize. He lives in Austin, Texas, with his wife and three children.