DDT and the American century : global health environmental politics and the pesticide that changed the world In DDT and the American Century David Kinkela chronicles the use of DDT around the world from 1941 to the present with a particular focus on the United States which has played a critical role in encouraging the global use of the pesticide. The banning of DDT in the United States in 1972 is generally regarded as a signal triumph for the American environmental movement. Yet DDTs function as a tool of U.S. foreign policy and its use in international development projects designed to solve problems of disease and famine made it an integral component of the so called American Century. [book cover]