UNC Press - DDT and the American Century

272 pp., 6.125 x 9.25, 8 illus., notes, bibl., index

Luther H. Hodges Jr. and Luther H. Hodges Sr. Series on Business, Society, and the State

Cloth

ISBN 978-0-8078-3509-8

Published: November 2011

Global Health, Environmental Politics, and the Pesticide That Changed the World

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.

About the Author

David Kinkela is assistant professor of history at the State University of New York-Fredonia.

Reviews

"Readers interested in the environment, public health, and international relations will find this book particularly timely. . . . A relevant and useful addition."
--Library Journal

"[Kinkela] presents DDT as a useful product with undesirable long-term ecological effects, requiring careful judgment about when to use it."
--Foreign Affairs

"This is a valuable book about a controversy that is still of critical importance. Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates through professionals; general readers."
--Choice

"In this deeply researched and superb book, David Kinkela offers a refreshing take on the complex history of DDT. He revises our perception of long-standing environmental issues and places the debate over DDT in a global context that is invaluable to understanding why the use of DDT is still argued over today."
--Mart Stewart, Western Washington University, author of "What Nature Suffers to Groe": Life, Labor, and Landscape on the Georgia Coast, 1680-1920

"If anyone can rescue the continuing debate over DDT from the ranters and ideologues, David Kinkela can. His book is a model of historical research--even-handed and carefully reasoned, based on a wealth of evidence."
--Donald Worster, author of A Passion for Nature: The Life of John Muir

"In DDT and the American Century, Kinkela gives us a compelling and lucid international history of one of the most controversial chemicals of modern times. In the quarter century after 1945, DDT helped fight the Cold War by killing disease-bearing insects and crop pests. Kinkela's archivally based research shows how important and effective DDT was in American initiatives around the globe aimed at promoting health, agriculture, and sympathy for the United States--and deftly untangles the swirling controversies surrounding its use."
--J.R. McNeill, Georgetown University