David Orr is as insightful a commentator on the environment and politics as anyone writing today. In this hard-hitting set of thirteen essays, he describes the current state of American politics against the backdrop of mounting ecological and social problems, the corrosive influence of money, the corruption of language, and the misuse of terrorism as a political issue.

The Last Refuge sets out an agenda that transcends conventional ideological labels. Partisan wrangling, David Orr contends, is only a symptom of a deeper dysfunction: The whole political machinery that connects Americans' fundamentally honorable ideals with public policy is broken. The book's withering critique highlights the failings of the Bush administration, but that is merely a means to a much more ambitious end. After analyzing the hard work that will be required to fix the system, David Orr offers an empowering vision of a second American Revolution that peaceably throws off the intergenerational tyranny imposed by an unsustainable present generation over succeeding generations.

Like the first American Revolution, this one will draw its inspiration from a new worldwide Enlightenment, already underway, based on the supremacy of human rights over those of corporations, on the scientific understanding of ecological systems and economics, and on a capitalism that values natural as well as financial capital. This second revolution, David Orr pointedly asserts, will require a "higher patriotism" whose hallmark is not blind allegiance to a particular ideology or administration but rather a commitment to long-term justice, equity, and sustainability.

Fearless, spirited, yet essentially idealistic, The Last Refuge sounds a clarion call to the legions of the disenchanted.

Read an Earth in Mind, Island Press, 1994, 2004) and scores of articles on subjects ranging from education to agriculture.