An American southwest
author and
naturalist.
1927-
1989. Best known for his
fictional tale known as
The Monkey Wrench Gang, in which the main characters seek to stop
mindless development of the american
west. He is loved by many for his
accurate and
detailed descriptions of western lands, as well as his
social commentary.
His
books are reccommended
reading for
geeks everywhere, especially if you live
anywhere around
New Mexico,
Arizona,
Nevada, or
Utah. Might make you realize that there is more to the world than
computers, and if you don't realize this, you might get
buried alive by a Mitsubishi bulldozer.
Meet Edward Paul Abbey, twentieth-century polemicist and desert anarchist, a character of elaborate contradictions and eccentricities whose words either infuriated or delighted his readers.
In a career spanning four decades, he wrote passionately in defense of the Southwest and its inhabitants, often mocking the mindless bureaucratic forces hell-bent on destroying it. "Resist much, obey little" from Walt Withman, was this warrior's motto.
While he was alive, attempts to label him in conventional terms nearly always fell short because he was neither left-wing nor right-wing, nor was he an outlaw. Abbey was a genuine rebel who simply did not believe in the moderns industrial way of life. He wrote against the grain, always choosing the path of the greatest resistance. Beginning in the 1950s, he depicted the Southwest not as a virgin utopia peopled by rugged individualists, but as a region under siege because of government and corporate greed, its people at risk of being cut off from the primary wellspring of their spiritual strength - the wild places. He's been dead for a while now, but the legend keeps in growing.
-- from Epitaph for a Desert Anarchist
His works:
Fiction
Jonathan Troy
The Brave Cowboy
Fire on the Mountain
Black Sun
The Monkey Wrench Gang
Good News
Fool's Progress
Heyduke Lives!
Nonfiction
Desert Solitaire: A Season in the Wilderness
Slickrock
Cactus Country
The Hidden Canyon
Appalachain Wilderness
The Journey Home
Abbey's Road
Desert Images
Down the River with Henry David Thoreau and Friends
Beyond the Wall
The Best of Edward Abbey
One Life at a Time, Please