Combing through scientific studies and correspondents’ reports in her seaside home in Maine, Rachel Carson saw nature bludgeoned by a chemical barrage. Telling stories about the northern Barren Lands, Farley Mowat expressed the spirit and meaning of wolves at home in the wilderness. Drawing on advice from every continent, Barbara Ward and René Dubos crafted an early vision of a shared planet. Elsewhere, computer modelers projected a collision between growing human appetites and a finite world.