War and Nature: Fighting Humans and Insects with Chemicals from World War I to "Silent Spring." (review)

This latest addition to Cambridge's Studies in Environment and History series is a fascinating account of the coevolution of chemical warfare and insecticide use through the first half of the twentieth century, one that thoughtfully examines the complicated symbiosis between three groups of participants. The American military's development of toxic gases is shown to have encouraged entomologists to press for more aggressive "peaceful warfare" (p. 13) against insect pests, while the needs of both these institutions fueled the growth of the chemical industry. Following these interactions from the First World War through the opening round of the Cold War, Edmund Russell provides insight into the formation of a major component of the military-industrial complex that burst upon public consciousness at the end of Eisenhower's presidency.

The crossovers from one side to another were numerous: chemicals developed for military use were turned against agricultural pests, agricultural productivity was emphasized by entomologists as essential to national defense. They were also as often metaphorical as practical. Insects were characterized as foreign invaders engaging Americans in a struggle for survival that could be won only through annihilation of the enemy (at times, the arthropod invaders unwittingly reinforced the metaphor, as with the Hessian fly and the Japanese beetle during World War II). Likewise, moral repugnance to the horror of war was repeatedly soothed by the reduction of enemy soldiers to the status of subhuman pests: "vermin like Japs and Nazis," an officer in the Pacific theater concluded, "have to be exterminated" (p. 134).

Although War and Nature is not primarily a work of medical history, it does include discussion of two significant areas of public health. The use of DDT to prevent casualties from typhus in Europe and from malaria in the Pacific during the Second World War is dealt with at some length. The remarkable military efficacy of this "Atomic Bomb of the Insect World" (p. 176), moreover, made it an object of intense demand from agriculturalists, as well as the general public, following the war, leading to the indiscriminate and excessive applications that soon generated concern for the health effects of DDT in the human food supply.

The environmental consequences of the use of DDT and other pesticides are the final focus of the book. Russell shows that even before the end of World War II, DDT's potential to destroy species other than insects was clearly seen. Government entomologists warned that its careless application could result in "biological deserts" (p. 159). Environmentalists' reservations were overcome, however, by the lobbying efforts of the chemical industry, which persuaded the War Production Board in 1945 to approve the sale of DDT to any purchaser for any use. Not until the 1962 publication of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring (which, ironically, presented insecticide use as a form of chemical warfare that people waged against themselves) would public opinion turn against the environmental ravages of pesticides.

Drawing heavily on the records of several government agencies, Russell writes in an engaging style and avoids excessive detail in retracing the deliberations of organizations such as the Chemical Warfare Service and the Bureau of Entomology. The book is enlivened further by a number of telling, oft-times amusing, illustrations that demonstrate how government and industry conflated human enemies and insect threats.