Last Stand is primarily a collection of nature photography with chapter introductions written by Barbara Kingsolver. This is an environmental work in that the aim of the book is to educate about some of the beautiful regions of our country and to tell that there is a significant human threat to the environment. Kingsolver writes passionately about how the human settlement and human wastefulness is cause further destruction of the environment. The photography in this book is broken up not into regions of the country, but types of ecological regions: wetlands, forest areas, etc.
The photography by Annie Griffith Belt is absolutely beautiful. There are two types of photography. The first type is black and white infrared photography that has been hand colored. These pictures look like paintings, and while pretty, I was not as interested in these pictures. The photographs that I found to be stunning were the simple color pictures. We get to see beautiful landscapes that would make a very nice postcard. These are images that make a strong case that these are places we need to preserve.
I should state that I do not know anything about photography, so I cannot speak for the craft of taking pictures and how well the photographs come out as technical pieces. I just enjoyed the photography.
My suggestion is that one should look at this book for the beautiful photography and not for Kingsolver s section introductions. However, if someone is interested in reading that these are beautiful places that are being ruined by a human cause, by all means, read the text in this book. Barbara Kingsolver is a wonderful writer, but when she has a cause and is writing non-fiction, she is not nearly as interesting as she is in her fiction. This book is worth looking at for the color photography.