Derrick Jensen is the prize-winning author of A Language Older Than Words, The Culture of Make Believe, Listening to the Land, Strangely Like War, Welcome to the Machine, and Walking on Water. He was one of two finalists for the 2003 J. Anthony Lukas Book Prize, which cited The Culture of Make Believe as "a passionate and provocative meditation on the nexus of racism, genocide, environmental destruction and corporate malfeasance, where civilization meets its discontents." He is an environmental activist and lives on the coast of northern California.

“This culture is killing the planet,” declares Jensen, a radically holistic thinker and a passionate and persuasive writer both revered and reviled for his candor. Together with his environmentalist coauthor McBay, Jensen seeks to break the habits of mind that induce us to deny the severity of our environmental predicament and point the way to significant change. To that end, Jensen and McBay conduct an in-depth analysis of waste and wastefulness, from what passes through our bodies, including hazardous pharmaceuticals, to the planetary plagues of plastic and toxic chemicals. Combining arresting personal stories with unnerving facts about our throwaway society, the authors rigorously define genuine sustainability and warn us away from “pseudo-solutions.” Some may bridle at Jensen and McBay’s bluntness, urgency, and bold vision, but their demand for the end of wishful thinking and the beginning of environmental transformation is rooted in meticulously constructed arguments, striking psychological insights, and a profound love of life. It’s time, they declare, to “build a culture of resistance,” reject the status quo, and ask, “What do you want to leave behind?” --Donna Seaman