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From 1936 to 1940, the newly-wed George Orwell lived in a small cottage in Hertfordshire, writing and tending his garden. When Rebecca Solnit visited the cottage, she discovered the descendants of the roses that he had planted many decades before. These survivors, as well as the diaries he kept of his planting and growing, provide a springboard for a fresh look at Orwell's motivations and drives, and the optimism that countered his dystopian vision. It opens up a profound meditation on our relationship to plants, trees and the natural world. Tracking his impact on political thought over the last century, Solnit journeys to England and Russia, Mexico and Columbia, exploring the political and historical events that shaped Orwell's life and her own. She follows his journey from the coalmines of England to taking up arms in the Spanish Civil War, from his prescient critique of Stalin to his analysis of the relationship between lies and authoritarianism. She makes fascinating forays into colonial legacies in the flower garden, discovers photographer Tina Modotti's roses, reveals Stalin's obsession with growing lemons in impossibly cold conditions, and exposes the brutal rose industry in Columbia. A book of reflection, pleasure, beauty and joy as acts of resistance. 308pp, illus.