born Jan. 29, 1927, Home, Pa., U.S.
died March 14, 1989, Oracle, Ariz.
U.S. writer and environmentalist.
Abbey worked as a park ranger and fire lookout for the National Park Service. He wrote a number of volumes on consumer culture's encroachment on the American wilderness. Desert Solitaire (1968), one of his best-known, is set in southeastern Utah. His 1975 novel The Monkey Wrench Gang , describing the exploits of a band of guerrilla environmentalists, inspired numerous real-life activists.