American Pests: The Losing War on Insects from Colonial Times to DDT

James E. McWilliams

July, 2008
Cloth, 312 pages, 35 illus.
ISBN: 978-0-231-13942-7
$24.95 / £14.95

Acknowledgments

Introduction. "the dunghill of men's passions": The Insect Paradox

1. "the insect tribes still maintain their ground": Insects and Early Americans

2. "there is no Royal Road to the destruction of bugs": The Rise of the Professionals

3. "Let us conquer space": Breaking the Plains and Fighting the Insects

4. "a great schemer": Charles V. Riley and the Broken Promises of Early Insecticides

5. "let us spray": Mosquitoes, War, and Chemicals

6. "vot iss de effidence?": Residues, Regulations, and the Politics of Protecting Insecticides

7. "complaints are coming in": A Year in the Life of an Insecticide Nation, 1938

8. "Let's put our heads together and start a new country up": Silent Springs and Loud Protests

Epilogue. "Some very learned men are the greatest fools in the world": In Praise of Localism

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Related Subjects

• American History
• Environmental Policy
• General Science

About the Author

James E. McWilliams is an associate professor of history at Texas State University-San Marcos and a recent fellow in the Agrarian Studies Program at Yale University. His articles have appeared in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, and Washington Post, among other publications, and he is the author of A Revolution in Eating: How the Quest for Food Shaped America and Building the Bay Colony: Local Economy and Society in Early Massachusetts.

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