The extraordinary story of a lowly-paid public servant who launched an environmental conservation movement and became an unlikely 1960s pop culture icon.

Using a combination of lyrical writing and fact driven journalism, when Rachel Carson's Silent Spring was published in 1963 it alerted the world to the dangers of the overuse of the pesticide DDT. The book was embraced by the burgeoning environmental movement and rejected by vested interests. It's still considered a benchmark in environmental writing today.

This is the fourth episode of The Books That Changed Us which takes a fresh look at five influential books of the 20th century.

GuestsMichael E Mann — Presidential Distinguished Professor of Earth and Environmental Science at the University of Pennsylvania, with a secondary appointment in the Annenberg School for Communication. Author of The New Climate War and Our Fragile Moment.

Elizabeth Kolbert — journalist and Pulitzer prize winning author for The Sixth Extinction: An Unnatural history. Her latest book is H is for Hope: Climate Change from A to Z.

Mark Madison —  Chief Historian, US Fish and Wildlife Service.