Fires in the Night

Advance Praise for Fires in the Night

“Wolfe centers his in-depth study of American eco-terrorism on the Earth Liberation Front. But more than just an account of the F.B.I.’s clashes with that Pacific Northwest group, this is a larger story of the questions surrounding radical resistance, both during the late 1990s and today.”
—The New York Times Book Review

“A gripping history of ’90s eco-terror . . . Given we live in the age of Standing Rock, Just Stop Oil, and How to Blow Up a Pipeline, it’s funny much the campaign of animal liberation and arson waged by the Earth Liberation Front in the 1990s and early 2000s has been overlooked . . . Matthew Wolfe’s comprehensive new book, a meticulously reported history of the ELF and its major actions, told with the cooperation of many of the main American cell’s core members, changes that . . . Gripping and fascinating.”
—Max Read, via his newsletter

“At once a cinematically propulsive narrative, a herculean feat of reporting, and a sweeping work of modern environmental history, this book is a marvel. Wolfe has taken a great, fearless bite out of the American soul, and it burns.”
—Robert Moor, New York Times bestselling author of On Trails and In Trees

“Fires in the Night is cinematic, suspenseful, totally immersive. This is nonfiction as film noir. Matthew Wolfe’s unbelievably meticulous reporting puts us inside the minds and meetings of a secretive group fighting, as they see it, for the life of the planet.”
—Zoë Schlanger, New York Times bestselling author of The Light Eaters

“Masterful reporting. As riveting as any thriller. Reads like a nonfiction novel starring idealistic radicals, righteously incensed by environmental injustice, on a doomed trajectory towards confrontation with the capitalist state. A forgotten prequel to 9/11 that couldn’t be more relevant today.”
—Seth Harp, New York Times bestselling author of The Fort Bragg Cartel

“In the 1990s, as the planet was warming and the world was in denial, a group of activists intent on preventing ecological collapse flocked to the Pacific Northwest to mount a radical response. Fires in the Night is a riveting story of what happened when they tried to spark a political awakening in America, and a brilliant meditation on how a social movement draws its own moral lines.”
—Eric Klinenberg, #1 New York Times bestselling co-author of Modern Romance and Palaces for the People

“A fascinating history of the Earth Liberation Front . . . Wolfe captures the urgency that gave rise to the group and poses potent questions about the ethical boundaries of extremism. Readers will be rapt.”
—Publishers Weekly

“A searching history of a group of saboteurs whom the FBI once deemed ‘the country’s foremost domestic terrorism threat.’ . . . A solid work of investigative journalism.”
—Kirkus Reviews