The Monkey Wrench Gang

Written in shortly after his time working for the National Parks Service in Utah and Arizona, Edward Abbey's novel concerns the use of sabotage in the face of ecocide to protest environmentally damaging activities in the Southwestern United States. It was so influential that the term "monkeywrenching", often used as a verb, has come to mean, besides sabotage and damage to machines, any sabotage, activism, law-making, or law-breaking to preserve wilderness, wild spaces and ecosystems.

The book's four main characters are ecologically minded misfits—"Seldom Seen" Smith, a Jack Mormon river guide; Doc Sarvis, an odd but wealthy and wise surgeon; Bonnie Abbzug, his young feminist assistant; and a rather eccentric Green Beret Vietnam veteran, George Hayduke. Together, although not always working as a tightly knit team, they form the titular group dedicated to the destruction of what they see as the system that pollutes and destroys their environment, the American West. As the gang's attacks on deserted bulldozers and trains continue, the law closes in.

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