Yong (6/26): Ecotopia by Ernest Callenbach

California, Oregon, and Washington secede from the United States, to form an independent nation called Ecotopia. Sounds like a leftist tree-hugger's dream come true, esp. in light of the past eight years, doesn't it? This was apparently a seminal work, in that things that are more commonly known today--the ecological unsustainability of our economy, the flaws of unrestrained capitalism, the failings of our educational system, the tears in our social fabric--took incredible foresight and self-examination to see thirtysome years ago, in 1975, when this guy wrote this book. It's seminal for how accurately he saw and predicted. And like most seminal works, the thing that makes it seminal pretty much drowns out everything else. The vast bulk of this book's 181 pages is descriptive, with a bare minimum of plot to hold it all together. It's not very entertaining, but it is interesting and relevant sociopolitical commentary.

I actually got this book for free. It came in the mail unsolicited, along with thirty copies of a flyer for an upcoming local appearance by the author, because my name must have appeared on some mailing list of teachers, and they were hoping I'd teach it to my kids. So I was a bit dubious. But it was worth the read. And Ecotopia's militarized borders with the US made a nice analogue for my passage back across from Canada, shot here at the Niagara Falls port of entry. It's strange that Canadian border agents always seem to be more rigorous than America's.

Or maybe it isn't.