BOOK REVIEW
DDT and the American Century:
Global Health, Environmental
Politics, and the Pesticide
that Changed the World
David Kinkela
2011; 256 pages
The University of North Carolina Press
Chapel Hill, NC
ISBN: 978-0-8078-3509-8
$100.00 (hardcover); $25.00 (softcover)
In his book, DDT and
the American Century,
historian David Kinkela takes us through the
rise and fall of DDT in
a series of interesting
and interrelated stories that unfolded from
about 1940-1975. The
author does an excellent job of recounting the “birth” of DDT, in terms of use
as an insecticide in 1939, by the Swiss
chemist Paul Muller. Many interesting
developments for DDT followed, primarily for military uses, but also for civilian
disease control (control of body lice for
typhus prevention in Italy is used as a
primary example) and for agriculture.
After WWII, use of DDT in agriculture
and for control of insect vectors of human
disease expanded dramatically. DDT was
a spectacular success in many places
where it was used. The U.S. became the
major producer of DDT, and the author
asserts that this did a great deal to bolster the popularity of America abroad
for more than a decade. Throughout the
text, the author details how DDT had
interconnections between foreign policy, economics, and technology. As the
author states, “The book traces the flow
and use of DDT around the world, while
placing the United States…at the center
of the story.” The author has apparently pored over numerous proceedings,
reports, and articles, as the book is well
referenced. The end product is an informative history of DDT, particularly how
250
it was viewed and used by the U.S. DDT
and the American Century is an interesting and easy read.
During the 1950s, DDT was a key component in two major stories: the Green
Revolution and the World Health Organization (WHO) Malaria Eradication Program. Kinkela details some of Norman
Borlaug’s first efforts at developing new
wheat varieties able to grow in Mexico
and how DDT (and other insecticides)
was intimately associated with increased
agriculture production associated with
the “Green Revolution.” With the use of
organochlorine insecticides in “modern
agriculture” came the need for training
applicators about how to safely use these
materials. Some of the first efforts in this
regard are highlighted, particularly relative
to insecticide use in Mexico and extension efforts there. However, the rush to
embrace insecticides as the only answer
to insect problems was not universally
accepted and the debate in this area is
nicely captured by the author.
In 1955 WHO began the Global Malaria Eradication Program. With financial
backing from many countries, and with
DDT as the mainstay of control, a major
effort was underway to eradicate this devastating disease. For the next many years,
the number of cases and deaths from
malaria dropped dramatically. Unfortunately, insecticide resistance and other
problems diminished the effectiveness
of the program over time. In 1969, the
WHO called for cessation of the eradication program, acknowledging that the
goal was not obtainable.
With the publication of Silent Spring
by Rachel Carson in 1962, a new chapter
in the history of DDT (and other insecticides) was opened. Carson eloquently
wrote of the negative issues associated
with pesticides and offered an alternative view to the economic poisons. The
controversies that followed Silent Spring
are very nicely detailed in Mr. Kinkela’s
book and make for thought-provoking
reading. For example, he details the vociferous and sexist attacks leveled at Rachel
Carson following the publication of her
landmark book, and describes how the
pro-DDT and con-DDT camps became
intractably entrenched without seeking
common ground: a situation that did not
help move the controversy forward. Two
other groups are highlighted in this era:
ecologists and entomologists. The book
does a nice job of showing some of the
struggles faced by ecologists, especially in
terms of their struggle for recognition as a
legitimate scientific field in the 1960s. Mr.
Kinkela also presents an interesting assessment of entomology and entomologists. He
suggests that recognition of entomologists
was tied to the rise and fall in popularity of
DDT; rising sharply in the 1940s and 1950s
only to plummet in the 1960s.
As the controversies over insecticide
use proliferated, the U.S. entered into an
era when policy was molded by litigation,
and the lawsuits brought forward by the
Environmental Defense Fund are provided as prime examples. Mr. Kinkela walks
the reader through the evolution of the
environmental movement, the banning
of DDT, new federal laws, the creation of
the EPA and the philosophical arguments
about selling materials abroad that were
banned from use in the U.S.
Having explained what this book covers, it is perhaps appropriate to explain
what it is not. This book is not a history
of agrochemical development (other than
DDT), nor is it a review of the scientific
studies conducted on the effects or effectiveness of DDT. Readers seeking this
information will need to look elsewhere.
However, this book is unique, as it is the
only treatise on this topic I am aware of
that presents a reasonably balanced view
of the history of DDT.
Jeffrey G. Scott
Department of Entomology
Cornell University
Ithaca, NY 14850
[email protected]
American Entomologist • Winter 2014