The DDT Myths: American Health and Environmentalism Since the Second World War

FAIN: FT-229712-15

Elena Conis
University of California, Berkeley (Atlanta, GA 30322-1018)

Summer research and writing on Cultural and U.S. History, and History of Science.

The DDT Myths unearths lost histories of the chemical pesticide DDT and examines the broader cultural, social, and political functions that often-told stories about DDT have served over time. Prevailing DDT narratives persist because they reaffirm parallel narratives about post-war Americans' attitudes toward science and technology, faith in technocracy, environmental turn, and global altruism. But they also hide the fact that DDT's risks and benefits have always been negotiated and interpreted within specific intellectual and cultural frameworks. This project constructs a new narrative of DDT--analyzing DDT's history from its 1940s introduction to the American market to its position at the center of a debate about global health and Western altruism in the 2000s--in order to illuminate the dialectical relationship between health and environmentalism and show why and how a long-banned chemical persists in holding such potent symbolic value in American history.

Associated Products

How to Sell a Poison: The Rise, Fall, and Toxic Return of DDT (Book)
Title: How to Sell a Poison: The Rise, Fall, and Toxic Return of DDT
Author: Elena Conis
Abstract: The story of an infamous poison that left toxic bodies and decimated wildlife in its wake is also a cautionary tale about how corporations stoke the flames of science denialism for profit. The chemical compound DDT first earned fame during World War II by wiping out insects that caused disease and boosting Allied forces to victory. Americans granted it a hero’s homecoming, spraying it on everything from crops and livestock to cupboards and curtains. Then, in 1972, it was banned in the US. But decades after that, a cry arose to demand its return. This is the sweeping narrative of generations of Americans who struggled to make sense of the notorious chemical’s risks and benefits. Historian Elena Conis follows DDT from postwar farms, factories, and suburban enclaves to the floors of Congress and tony social clubs, where industry barons met with Madison Avenue brain trusts to figure out how to sell the idea that a little poison in our food and bodies was nothing to worry about. In an age of spreading misinformation on issues including pesticides, vaccines, and climate change, Conis shows that we need new ways of communicating about science—as a constantly evolving discipline, not an immutable collection of facts—before it’s too late.
Year: 2022
Primary URL: https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/elena-conis/how-to-sell-a-poison/9781645036746/?lens=bold-type-books
Publisher: Hachette
Type: Single author monograph
ISBN: 978-1645036746
Copy sent to NEH?: No

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