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VAbbeySlides1.pptxColorado River: Giving Life to the American Southwest
Glen Canyon Dam
Hoover Dam
Water, the Colorado River, and the American Southwest: Sustainable Growth?
Edward Abbey: 1927-1989
Desert Solitare: one of 23 complete works, 9 of which are of fiction.
The Monkey Wrench Gang, another fictional work, affiliated Abbey with the Earth First! Movement.
University of Arizona—ongoing controversy over construction of Mt. Graham observatory: site of “monkeywrenching” protests.
Abel Duffy: Feb. 1994 Occupation of University of Arizona’s Student Union Clock Tower to protest University’s development of Mt. Graham.
Other works about water, rivers, and their necessity for survival
About Rivers and Water:
John Graves, Goodbye to a River
Mark Reisner, Cadillac Desert
About Abbey and His Influence
Dave Foreman, Confessions of an Eco-Warrior
Doug Peacock, Walking it Off
Cadillac Desert explains how our dams were built. The Monkey Wrench Gang envisions them being blown up.
Glen Canyon vs. Hoover Dams
Glen Canyon Dam:
Built 1956-66
Hoover Dam: Built 1931-35
Eliot Porter and David Brower, The Place No One Knew (Sierra Club, 1963)
Lost Image I:
The Dungeon
Lost Image II:
Twilight
The Arches National Park (near Moab, Utah): Setting for Desert Solitaire
Desert Solitaire: Some Thoughts
Abbey’s work is multidimensional, combining description, story, travel writing, polemic, drama, history, and other literary styles to produce a full view of the American Southwest.
Abbey’s work exists within the Romantic tradition of seeing the environment in varied ways—alternately, as a benevolent, purifying instructional force and a potentially deadly, destructive force.
Desert Solitaire is visionary, predicting many of the problems faced by the overstressed National Park System and the American Southwest in the forty-plus years since the book’s publication.
