The global consumption of fossil fuels is dramatically rising, while inversely, the supply is in permanent decline. The "end of oil" threatens the very future of Western civilization. Oil, Globalization, and the War for the Arctic Refuge examines the politics of drilling for oil in Alaska's Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, and presents this controversy as a precursor of future "resource wars" where ideas and values collide and polarize.

The reader is introduced to the primary participants involved: global corporations, politicians, nongovernmental organizations, indigenous peoples and organizations, and human rights/religious organizations.

Author David M. Standlea argues in favor of seeing this comparatively "local" conflict as part of a larger struggle between the proponents of an alternative, positive vision for the future and an American culture presently willing to sacrifice that future for immediate profit.