Rating: 
Summary: POWERFUL
Review: Environmentalist: before you get involved in any movement, you should read this book. Politicans: If you want to understand the environmentalist psyche ... read this book. Teachers: If you want to advance your Students activism ... read this book.
Rating:
Summary: The Ghost of Hayduke
Review: One quite helpful concept in this book is the act of burning billboards. Hayduke and his companions pull over in the dark of night in a rural area, and with the help of gasoline and match burn down billboards. This is indeed a marvelous idea. Removing the ubiquitous and annoying eyesores that insult us we traverse our nation on it's interstates, state highways and small roads. One stream of these particular billboards exist. It's so puerile and degrading to have to bear the brunt of these billboards, miles upon miles, for the sake of selling artificial knick-knacks in tourist-trappy drug store. In the "Monkey Wrench Gang" there are vivid depictions of Hayduke surveillancing, planning, and implementing acts of sabotage to the giant Earth-moving machines. Ending with the grand finale at the notorious damn. A damn in which even the people who planned and constructed it concede that it was a terrible mistake, today. Abbey is a solitary element of freedom while barreling down the the road through the deserts of the Southwest drinking cold beers with nothing but the yellow sun, blue sky, and mountainous etchings of the horizon in the distance. For all his relevant yet didactic beliefs Hayduke often littered, throwing beer cans out of his jeep onto the side of the road with glee. I never understood what the meaning of this was....there is some hypocrisy and condescension here and there with him....but then again, isn't this the case in life? Times are different now from the days when "Monkey Wrench" was released. Today, there is common and accepted hypocrisy when people claim to be a member of "environmentalist" organizations that are heavily funded by special interests, run by indoor-types who make careers out of it, and lobby within, not outside the system. As for the "Monkey Wrench Gang" there is a significant but not entirely explicit naturist, environmentalist, and political bent of these movements of today. There is a piece of most of us in the book. Especially as U.S. population growth propels the expansion of suburban encroachment, from Virgina to Florida, to the South and West. Hayduke is someone of the Southwest who witnesses the defeat of natural beauty in the name of "development." Accommodation for people, their growing population, and their movements. The first-hand and methodical destruction of what once was beautiful, to the sullen conformity and ugliness of suburban sprawl. It's happening today as the U.S. population continues to grow so rapidly and unnecessarily. As in Southern California and other populated areas of the country, too many people ruin the lifestyle and opportunities in a place, so many then leave en-masse to live somewhere that isn't ruined or spoiled--yet. (Human nature, perhaps....) If this isn't an example of people .... in one's own nest, and then moving on to destroy a new place, what is?
Rating:
Summary: the book that made a mark in my life
Review: I read many books in my life and usualy I forget right away which books I've read,but I still remember Edwert abbey's book there for "the Monkey Wrench Gang" is one of the most exuberant books I read in my life. This book telling a fantesized story about a group of four enviromental activists fighting a war against the ,throughout the American West natur harming road builders,miners ,damers and the government.Edwert abbey ,a skilled writer ,makes the story more lively with his extraordinary ability to specifically discribe the natural enviroment in which the 4 main charactars (George.W.Hayduke,A.K.Savis,M.D.,Seldom Seen Smith and Ms.B.Abbzug)might find them selves.
Rating: 
Summary: Great
Review: I had to read the book for an English class I took, not ever hearing of Edward Abbey befor; however, the book was great, esp liked the char of Hayduke and the hummer used throught the book. Found it very interesting how Abbey (through Doc)viwed "roadside buitification" and through Hayduke littered the road as a protest to unwanted paved highways... **HOWEVER** must read with an open mind!!
Rating:
Summary: "Sentiment without action is the ruin of the soul>" -Abbey
Review: No one opens minds quite like Abbey. Litter roads? Why not? Most roads are huge deposits of trash anyway according to George Washington Hayduke, a character as colorful as any other I've encountered in life or fiction.
The Monkey Wrench Gang is a fictional tale about four protestors of industrial progress and defenders of the American Southwest. It reads as a hair-raising yet amusing story with many close calls. Yet as entertaining as this story is, it is also a truly tragic depiction of the increasing shrinkage of the lower 48's largest wilderness area. This book should prove to be vastly important in American history. It spurred the births of various environmental groups which will have a collectively substantial impact in stopping superfluous ecological ruin.
It's my wish for everyone to read this book. Abbey lives on!
Rating:
Summary: Monkeywrench gang.
Review: Ed Abbey was extremely prophetic in this novel, it's too bad that there weren't more individuals willing to do what it took to save the desert southwest from industrialization when the plans of the corporate elite for the rape of this part of our heritage were in their infancy. It is a book well worth the time it takes to read. It will anger you at times, but it will also make one think. It made me ponder what could have been, if only we had been slaves of the land instead of the dollar.
Rating:
Summary: Immortal Book
Review: I have read this book a few times now and I still enjoy it! The humor is typical Abbey, with diatribes about the destruction of the Southwest by "gangsters in three piece suits." This book permanently changed the tone of the environmental movements. The tales of adventure and the odd-ball characters make this an enjoyable book. I finished this book wishing for more!
Rating:
Summary: A Racous Romp through the Desert
Review: I happen to live very near where this book is set and I enjoyed going out to these places and envisioning Hayduke, Doc, Abbzug, and Seldom Seen traipsing through the boulders and the scrub brush, tearing up bulldozers. Abbey brings the reader into the story well and keeps you there with rowdy chases and funny anecdotes from the slightly insane Hayduke. More than that, he begins to make you care for his cause. Having seen the devastation in the desert by the Highway dept. and others, I can understand where the motive for the book comes from. Abbey speaks out the only way he knows how, through irreverence, humor, and a whole lot of craziness. The writing style, while distinctly Abbey, put me off a bit. He starts off with a bang but it takes 100 pages before you really get into it again. His writing style is a little difficult to get through at times but the result is well worth it. The book is a joy to read and fun. I recommend it to anyone who can step outside of their common sense for a while and just enjoy a good story with a worthwhile moral.
Rating:
Summary: An utterly first rate environmental comic romp
Review: This extraordinarily fun novel is part farce, part environmentalist fantasy, and part social and political tract about the abuse of nature in the American West. The plot concerns an odd collection of radical environmentalists who band together to blow up the Glen Canyon River Dam. Of all the parts of the West that have been destroyed by the damming of the rivers of the West, nothing comes close to the regret over the loss of Glen Canyon. The extreme beauty of the area now underwater is well documented in Eliot Porter's beautiful book THE PLACE THAT NO ONE KNEW. Environmentalists and lovers of the West have long lamented the loss of these beautiful canyons. Hence the central fantasy of this book. But he loved to contemplate their destruction. I don't think Abbey really wanted to blow up the dam. If the Glen Canyon River dam were to be breached, by whatever means, it could cause a flood that would cause all the dams on the lower part of the Colorado to collapse because of the tremendous volume of water that would be unleashed. Even the Hoover Dam would be breached. Perhaps tens of thousands of people would die. That is why the book is a fantasy. Abbey was a provocateur. He stated things in a way to stir up a controversy, to get people riled up, to make people think. But I find it impossible to believe that he would actually have blown up the dam if it had been within his power. Although an environmentalist message and fantasy is at the heart of the book, the book wears its message lightly. The reason for this is the marvelous collection of absurd characters. The crew that assembles for their errand of mischief makes the novel exquisitely enjoyable. In particular, George Washington Hayduke III. One of the foulest mouthed characters in all of fiction, Hayduke is also one of the funniest, most outrageous, and most enjoyable. To be honest, remove Hayduke from this novel, and you are left with merely a decent rather than very good novel. The novel does carry a serious environmental message, but without Hayduke, it is merely a political tract dressed up as a novel. Hayduke, as the central and dominating character, balances the fun and fantasy with the message.
Rating:
Summary: Great read
Review: Look at what we are doing and read this book.
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