Coyotes and Town Dogs

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

In the late '70s through the '80s, the radical environmental group Earth First! achieved notoriety by its flamboyant activism while provoking widespread debate on environmental issues. In this lengthy, rambling account, reporter Zakin profiles the group and its major figures: Dave Foreman, Bart Koehler, Tim Mahoney, Mike Roselle, Howie Wolke, Louisa Willcos and Judi Bari. Zakin also describes other leading environmentalist figures from John Muir to David Brower. Earth First! members were disappointed with the national organizations and dismayed by Reagan policies. Devotees of Edward Abbey's The Monkeywrench Gang , they followed the principle of ``act now, think later.'' Zakin describes the group's activities in the West as it confronted loggers, miners and road-builders. She chronicles the rise of anti-environmentalist backlash and violence in northern California, FBI surveillance of Foreman and his companions and their subsequent arrest in 1989 for conspiracy to destroy government property. Foreman, who wrote Confessions of an Eco-Warrior in 1991, was released after agreeing to a plea-bargaining deal. (Sept.)

Library Journal

Zakin, a freelance journalist, has written a lively, fast-paced historical account of the sometimes controversial environmental group Earth! First. Beginning and ending her book with the 1989 arrest and 1991 trial of founding member Dave Foreman ( Confessions of an Eco-Warrior, LJ 3/1/91), Zakin traces Foreman's experiences from his days as a Washington lobbyist to his involvement with several colorful personalities, or ``buckaroos,'' who eventually became the nucleus of Earth! First. Zakin chronicles the group's various environmental activities, including the struggle over Black Mesa in Arizona, the ``cracking'' of Glen Canyon Dam, and tree spiking in the Pacific Northwest. Zakin also provides a good analysis of the environmental movement, both historical and contemporary, and shows the relationship between Earth! First and such groups as the Wilderness Society and Sierra Club. This solid work should be purchased where interest warrants.-- Eva Lautemann, DeKalb Coll. Lib., Clarkston, Ga.