The book 'Silent Spring' published in 1962 which set the tone for an environmental movement in the world, was written by

Rachel Carson is the answer. Silent Spring was published in 1962 by this American marine biologist and writer. It documented how indiscriminate pesticide use, especially DDT, was harming birds, soil and water, and it challenged the chemical industry's claims of safety. The book is widely credited with energising the modern environmental movement. It fed into the US ban on agricultural DDT in 1972 and the creation of the US Environmental Protection Agency in 1970.

Why the others fail:

• Carolyn Merchant is an American historian of science and ecofeminist thinker. Her well-known The Death of Nature (1980) is a history of ideas, not a 1962 call to action.
• Karl Marx wrote on political economy and class in Das Kapital. He did not write on pesticides or ecological crisis.
• Rajgopalan is not a recognised author of this landmark environmental text. Treat it as a distractor.

Core concept: the rise of environmental consciousness in the 1960s and 70s, which led to Stockholm 1972 and later the idea of sustainable development. For Mains, Carson anchors questions on pollution governance, the precautionary principle and the trade-off between chemical productivity and ecological health.

Trap: Aspirants who recall Carolyn Merchant from ecology readings pick A, mistaking a later ecology theorist for the author of a 1962 book.