Pervasive smog in New York City and Los Angeles, the Santa Barbara oil spill,
and the Cuyahoga River fires made headlines and frightened Americans
across the country. During the late 1960s, an “environmental crisis” took
shape as a series of environmental catastrophes and revelatory books
transformed the American environmental consciousness. Soon before the
crisis took its final form, several immensely popular books including Rachel
Carson’s 1962 Silent Spring and Ralph Nader’s 1965 Unsafe at Any Speed
pushed the public to question the relationship between the government,
tasked with protecting the public interest, and industries, incentivized to act
in their own economic interests.
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