The author is a University of Washington professor and is a wonderful speaker. I loved his talk at a community group and later tracked down this book. There are two things happening in the book; the first is the plot of a professor in the very near future surviving escalating terrorist attacks and the second are lengthy lectures and conversations of a philosophical and sociological nature interspersed within the story.

I have to admit that I thought the story distracted from the philosophy and that the philosophy distracted from the story. I would have probably enjoyed two separate books more then the combination into one volume.

This would be a good read for philosophical fans of Mad Max movies.