The Monkey Wrench Gang [50th Anniversary Edition] by Edward Abbey

A special 50th anniversary edition of Edward Abbey's classic tale of rebellion, camaraderie, and environmental justice--a prescient, comic masterpiece of destructive mayhem and outrageous civil disobedience that speaks to us today--with a new introduction by the real-life inspiration for George Hayduke's character, Doug Peacock.

When Ex-Green Beret George Hayduke returns from war to find his beloved Southwestern desert threatened by industrial development, it's up to him to take the noxious bull by the horns. Joining forces with Bronx exile and feminist saboteur Bonnie Abzug, wilderness guide and outcast Mormon Seldom Seen Smith, and libertarian billboard torcher Doc Sarvis, Hayduke is primed to fight the power. Strip miners, clear-cutters, and highway, dam, and bridge builders beware!

Now, fifty years after the original publication, the Monkey Wrench Gang is on the move again. This collectible anniversary edition is both a tribute to Abbey's legacy and a timeless call to arms for preserving the natural world. The introduction by Doug Peacock provides a window into his decades-long friendship with Abbey, and offers fresh insights into the novel's lasting relevance and impact.

Edward Abbey spent most of his life in the American Southwest. He was the author of numerous works of fiction and nonfiction, including the celebrated Desert Solitaire, which decried the waste of America's wilderness, and the novel The Monkey Wrench Gang, the title of which is still in use today to describe groups that purposefully sabotage projects and entities that degrade the environment. Abbey was also one of the country's foremost defenders of the natural environment. He died in 1989.

Review Quotes:

"Mixes comedy and chaos with enough chase sequences to leave you hungering for more." - San Francisco Chronicle

"Ribald, outrageous and, in fact, scandalous." - Smithsonian

"[Abbey] is part of that great American tradition to which Upton Sinclair, John Steinbeck and Sinclair Lewis also belonged: angry men who demonstrated that, though the pen may be mightier than the sword, it has so far been seriously outgunned by the bulldozer, the F-11 and--above all--by the dollar." - New Statesman

"Edward Abbey may have invented a new fictional genre, the ecological caper." - Newsweek

"[Abbey] wrote with exceptional exactitude and an unusually honest and logical understanding of causes and consequences, but he also loved argument, churlishness and exaggeration." - New York Book Review

"Endangered as it is, the air in this novel is a pleasure to breathe." - Newsweek

"A romp of a novel with a bent toward sabotage, Abbey's The Monkey Wrench Gang will inspire you." - Terry Tempest Williams, The New York Times Book Review

"Twirls along full of joy, mayhem, daring, high jinks, and rip-roarin' humor." - Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

"Abbey masterfully weds the traditions of the romantic quest with the suspense novel as he follows the motley fellowship on its campaign to preserve beauty and do battle with corporate forces of destruction." - Detroit Free Press

"Crunch! Kapow! Crash! Bang! The Monkey Wrench Gang is the wish-fulfilment dream of eco-Luddites everywhere." - The Guardian

"The Monkey Wrench Gang is a quartet of modern-day vigilantes, with a social conscience and a vengeance." - Philadelphia Inquirer

"You can't help but cheer on this likable but unlikely quartet of modern-day industrial saboteurs." - Kirkus Reviews

"Edward Abbey sits high in my pantheon of 20^th century writers for his anarchic eco-activist novel The Monkey Wrench Gang." - New Statesman