Book Critique: The Monkey Wrench Gang

The novel The Monkey Wrench Gang by environmental advocate Edward Abbey tells the story of a group of environmental activists fighting industrialization in the American Southwest. This novel inspired a whole new generation of eco-activists. George Hayduke, a former Green Beret kept as a prisoner of war in Vietnam for over a year, forms a group with three others, Dr. A.K. Sarvis, aka Doc, a 60-something-year-old surgeon; Bonnie Abzug, Doc's assistant, a college-educated Jewish woman from the Bronx; and Joseph “Seldom Seen” Smith, who serves as an outfitter and guide for excursions along the Colorado River. These people though having very different backgrounds join together to fight and protect their native region. 

One of the gang's many operations is to tamper with the bulldozers and other vehicles at the site of a new road's construction. They drain the oil from the bulldozers and let the motors run so that the engines will seize up. This is only one of the gang’s many exploits that opened many activist eyes to the fact that these companies will not stop unless action is taken, and that companies mean to harm the environment through industrialization. Now of course these acts were illegal and the group did face time for the acts they committed, but to me, it opened another side of environmental activism. When most people think of environmental activists they think of people who are very passive and want to resolve everything through words and protests and all peaceful acts. In the end, most companies that are set on building or industrializing an area go and attain a permit and continue the project with little push back. The Monkey Wrench gang showed me that not only should you take into consideration the opinions of environmentalists, but that there are people who get pushed over the limit and take action if pushed to extreme measures. 

The story reminds me of what lengths people can go to do what’s right even if the law isn’t on their side. It reminds me of a lot of protests against segregation and the difference between MLK’s version of fighting for freedom, and Malcolm X’s version. I know there is a vast difference in what the Monkey Wrench gang and MLK and Malcolm X were fighting for but in the end. They both wanted to see change and justice just for different causes.  In the fight for change against segregation, Malcolm X wanted to fight fire with fire he wanted to resort to violence. That wasn’t the right way to go about things, but it was a testimony of how angry he was against the system of oppression. He wanted to inspire others to join the fight on a more radical side but in the end, all he wanted was change. The same goes for the monkey wrench gang. Their anger and passion against these companies who could care less about the environment is what pushed them to acts of ecoterrorism. 

Their message is what inspired so many others to become environmental activists not because they blew stuff up and destroyed billboards wretched construction sites though that is a piece of it. They inspired others to do a little more. If they are willing to go to such lengths then why can’t I just go outside with a group to protest. The Monkey Wrench gang shows us how far people are willing to go for environmentalism.