CONFESSIONS OF AN ECO-WARRIOR

by Dave Foreman ‧ RELEASE DATE: March 1, 1991

Foreman, cofounder and spokesman for the radical environmental group Earth First! (the exclamation point is emphatically intentional), here offers an eloquent defense of his ""biocentric"" philosophy and cause--a cause that advocates ""monkey-wrenching,"" or sabotaging, the machines that are wrecking the wilderness--even as he withdraws from a group that has, he says, drifted into the hands of ""feral teenagers,"" dogma-bound leftists, and FBI infiltrators. In 1989, Foreman was pulled from his suburban Arizona bedroom by a band of FBI agents brandishing guns. They claimed he was the brains behind a band of dangerous ""eco-terrorists."" Now, as he faces a possible five-year sentence, Foreman clarifies his stand in the movement he helped launch in 1981 with the rallying cry of ""No compromise in defense of Mother Earth."" Foreman and a small band of cofounders drew their philosophy of biocentrism--the belief that all life is interconnected--from academic philosophers. Then they supercharged it with the prankster activism of the 60's and early 70's and with the gritty humor of novelist and part-time environmental activist Edward Abbey. Foreman supports his controversial program, which includes hammering spikes into old-growth trees to save them from the chain saw and pouring grit into the crankcases of forest-gouging bulldozers, by flowing from factual (and horrifying) reports about the destruction of our great forests and plains into lyrical passages about our land's great history and its decline: ""Huge piles of Bison bones bleached white by the sun. . ."" Foreman has the heart of a poet and the nervous urgency of a redneck ""eco-warrior"" as he rallies the reader to save ""Grey Wolf"" and ""Grizzly"" and ""Great Outside."" Walt Whitman in waffle-stompers. Foreman's prose is so jubilant and appealing that even those who object to his extremist views will be tempted to throw a wrench in the machine.

Pub Date: March 1, 1991

ISBN: 051788058X

Page Count: -

Publisher: Harmony/Crown

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 1991

Categories: NONFICTION