Ecotopia

A novel both timely and prophetic, Ernest Callenbach's Ecotopia is a hopeful antidote to today's environmental concerns, set in an ecologically sound future society. Hailed by the Los Angeles Times as the latest name after Wells, Verne, Huxley, and Orwell, Callenbach offers a visionary plan for the survival of our planet... and our future.

Ecotopia was founded when northern California, Oregon, and Washington seceded from the Union to create a stable ecosystem: the perfect balance between humans and the environment. Now, twenty years later, this isolated and mysterious nation welcomes its first officially sanctioned American visitor: New York Times-Post reporter Will Weston.

Skeptical yet curious about this new green world, Weston is determined to report his findings objectively. But from the start, he is alternately impressed and disturbed by the laws governing Ecotopia's ecological agenda: energy-efficient mini-cities to eliminate urban sprawl, zero-tolerance pollution control, tree worship, ritual war games, and a female-dominated government that has instituted peaceful revolutions such as the 20-hour workweek and employee-ownership of farms and businesses. His old beliefs challenged, his cynicism replaced by hope, Weston meets a sexually frank Ecotopian woman and begins a relationship whose intensity will lead him to a critical choice between two worlds.