Edward Abbey

"Edward Abbey (1927-1989) was a singular American writer and cult hero, as famous for books like Desert Solitaire and The Monkey Wrench Gang as he was infamous for the prickly persona of "Cactus Ed." Abbey's postcards and letters, legendary during his lifetime and collected here for the first time, convey the fullness of the man and reveal, along with his wisdom and savage wit, a tender side seldom seen before. Whether spouting on the virtues of anger, roasting hawkish proponents of Vietnam, or lending encouragement to fellow writers such as Cormac McCarthy, here we find the essential spirit of the man, intimate and revolutionary."--BOOK JACKET.

Presenting an alternative version of African American history, this novel explores what might have happened if John Brown’s 1859 raid on Harper’s Ferry had been successful. Chronicling life in a thriving black nation founded by Brown in the former southeastern United States, this dramatic story opens 100 years later, just as Nova Africa is poised to celebrate its first landing of a spacecraft on Mars. The prosperous black state will soon be tested when the granddaughter of John Brown returns from Africa to reunite with her daughter and share with her a secret that will alter their lives forever.

From boyhood in Home, Pennsylvania, to his death in Tucson, Arizona, in 1989, this book offers - in Abbey's own words - the world of an American original. Whether writing fact or fiction, Abbey was always an autobiographer. Each of the thirty-five selections presented here, arranged chronologically by date of incident (not of publication), demonstrates that Abbey was passionately, insistently his own man. As poet-farmer Wendell Berry puts it: "He remains Edward Abbey, speaking as and for himself, fighting, literally, for dear life ... for the survival not only of nature, but of human nature, of culture, as only our heritage of works and hopes can define it.". To speak for the voiceless was his mission. He was a virtuoso of the well-phrased thought in which style and content, symbol and meaning - each imbued with humor - come together to defy the powerful, reminding us always that preservation of wild nature is a key to a free spirit. And along with Emerson and Thoreau, Abbey, the uncompromising stylist, knew that the corruption of language follows the corruption of man. "Language," Abbey wrote, "seeks to transcend itself, 'to grasp the thing that has no name.'"

Edward Abbey continues to grow in stature as one of America's funniest and most profound twentieth-century writers. Brooding, iconoclastic, prophetic, Abbey was principally known as a prose writer, the author of such legendary works as The Monkey Wrench Gang, Desert Solitaire, and The Brave Cowboy. Although Abbey rarely published his poetry, he was, unbeknownst to his loyal and often fanatical public, a passionate producer of verse, and these seventy-one original poems - never before published in any form (although several were rejected by the leading magazines of the nation) - offer an insightful and wrenching look into the mind of this great man known to some as "Cactus Ed." To read these poems, all written between 1952 and 1989, and culled from his Journals, is to feel the ineffable, irrefutable essence of Edward Abbey.

Jack, an old man in search of his son, and Sam, a Harvard-educated Indian, face the dictator and his nasty band of killers who are taking over the South.

"In 1984, the late great Edward Abbey compiled this reader, endeavoring, as he says in his preface, "to present what I think is both the best and most representative of my writing - so far." Two decades later, it remains the only major collection of his work chosen by Abbey himself, a feast of fiction and prose." "Devoted Abbey fans along with readers just discovering his work will find a mother lode of treasures here: generous chunks of his best novels, including The Brave Cowboy, Black Sun, and his classic The Monkey Wrench Gang, and more than a score of his evocative, passionate, trenchant essays - a genre in which he produced acknowledged masterpieces such as Desert Solitaire. There is even an excerpt from a novel he was working on in 1984, eventually published as The Fool's Progress. Scattered throughout are the author's own petroglyph-style sketches." "Abbey went on publishing new work until his untimely death in 1989 at age sixty, so this new edition includes a selection of later Abbey: a chapter from Hayduke Lives!, the hilarious sequel to The Monkey Wrench Gang; excerpts from his revealing journals; a little-known account of a trip to the Sea of Cortez; and examples of his poetry."--Jacket.

Ex-Green Beret George Hayduke returns from war to find his beloved southwestern desert threatened by industrial development. Joining with Bronx exile and feminist saboteur Bonnie Abzug, wilderness guide and outcast Mormon Seldom Seen Smith, and libertarian billboard torcher Doc Sarvis, M.D., Hayduke is ready to fight the power. They (the Monkey Wrench Gang) take on the strip miners, clear-cutters, and the highway, dam, and bridge builders who are threatening the natural habitat in this is a comedic novel of destructive mayhem and outrageous civil disobedience.

Edward Abbey was an anarchist, activist, philosopher, and the spiritual father of the environmental movement. He was also a passionate journal keeper, a man who filled page after page with notes, philosophical musings, character sketches, illustrations, musical notations, and drawings. His "scribbling," as he called it, began in 1948, when he served as a motorcycle MP in postwar Italy, and continued until his death in 1989, totaling twenty-one volumes. His journals are the closest thing to an Abbey autobiography we will ever have. They reveal his youthful philosophical ruminations about art, love, literature and anarchy; follow his wanderings through Europe and the Eastern States and finally his spiritual home, the American West; and chronicle his lifelong struggle to preserve the disappearing wilderness.--From publisher description.

A collection of excerpts from the author's fiction and essays covers people, politics, and nature from California to North Carolina to Europe, and from New York to southern Mexico to Australia.

Lavishly illustrated description of the physical features, wildlife and vegetation of the Sonoran Desert of the Southwestern United States.

A book which describes the unique beauty and fragile ecology of Utah, which was, at the time of writing, already threatened by destruction due to tourism, pollution, etc.

A book about Edward Abbey's life as a park ranger in the American Southwest in the 1950's.

A first-person history of nonviolent resistance in the U.S., from pre-Revolutionary America to the Trump years. While historical accounts of the United States typically focus on the nation's military past, a rich and vibrant counter narrative remains basically unknown to most Americans. This alternate history of the formation of our nation—and its character—is one in which courageous individuals and movements have wielded the tools of nonviolence to resist unjust, unfair, and immoral policies and practices. We the Resistance gives curious citizens and current resisters unfiltered access to the hearts and minds of their activist predecessors. Beginning with the pre-Revolutionary War era and continuing through to the present day, readers will encounter the voices of protestors sharing instructive stories about their methods (from sit-ins to tree sitting) and opponents (from Puritans to Wall Street bankers), as well as inspirational stories about their failures (from slave petitions to the fight for the ERA), and successes (from enfranchisement for women to today's reform of police practices). Instruction and inspiration run throughout this captivating reader, generously illustrated with historic graphics and photographs of nonviolent protests throughout U.S. history.