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Civil Disobedience and Other Essays

Henry David Thoreau

4.07 · Rating details · 15,863 ratings · 326 reviews

Civil Disobedience and Other Essays is a collection of some of Henry David Thoreau's most important essays. Contained in this volume are the following essays: Civil Disobedience, Natural History of Massachusetts, A Walk to Wachusett, The Landlord, A Winter Walk, The Succession of Forest Trees, Walking, Autumnal Tints, Wild Apples, Night and Moonlight, Aulus Persius Flaccus ...more

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Paperback, 188 pages

Published January 1st 2005 by Digireads.com (first published 1849)

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Jan 31, 2017 Manny marked it as to-read

Shelves: donalds-are-trumps

Last time I reviewed this book, my review was rapidly deleted and I received a mail explaining that "if I continued to post content like this, my account might come under review for removal". Okay, let's see what happens this time round. Like millions of people round the world, I am appalled at what Trump, Bannon and the rest of their team have done in the eleven days since Trump became President of the United States. This is clearly no more than the beginning. I want to oppose them. But what ca Last time I reviewed this book, my review was rapidly deleted and I received a mail explaining that "if I continued to post content like this, my account might come under review for removal". Okay, let's see what happens this time round. Like millions of people round the world, I am appalled at what Trump, Bannon and the rest of their team have done in the eleven days since Trump became President of the United States. This is clearly no more than the beginning. I want to oppose them. But what can I do? I'm not even a US resident.

Let me think aloud for a minute or two. I started off by deciding that I wouldn't unnecessarily pay any money to the US: no trips to the US, as few purchases as possible of US products. Presumably this has some tiny effect, but it's not very dramatic. Of course, if enough people did it then you'd see things happen; I notice that Mexicans are already starting to boycott Mcdonalds and Starbucks. It would still be nice to accelerate the process.

It's now well-established that the internet is a powerful tool for organizing collective action. Already, there are hundreds of petitions, marches and demonstrations being set up that way. I'm wondering what options are available if people want to coordinate economic action against Trump's regime. For example, I don't think the following apps would be impossible challenges to build:

1. A shopping app which optimised its search so as to give as little money as possible to the US. Part of the problem with organising a boycott is that it's hard to know which things are actually American. The app takes care of that; it has a crowdsourced database of information which lets it quickly decide that Brand X will send 34% of the money you pay to the US, but Brand Y only 12%. Of course, American patriots will be able to use it in reverse, sending as many dollars as possible to US companies. It'd be interesting to see which pattern of behavior was more common.

2. A phone app which refused to take calls from any US-made phones. If the app is switched on, an attempt to call you from an iPhone just gets a polite message saying that the owner only accepts calls from non-US phones. Once again, needless to say, patriots could use it in reverse.

There's already a primitive app to boycott Trump businesses. I think we'll soon see this taken further. Please let me know if you come across anything interesting.
_______________________

Thinking more about what I can do here, the subject of international conferences occurs. As an academic, I typically submit half a dozen papers a year to various conferences in my field. The venues for these conferences are in nearly all cases chosen by an international committee after a bidding process. Many conferences are held in the US. A quick look around Google suggests that the US conference market is worth on the order of $100B per year.

Given the Trump administration's irrational and capricious policy of banning people from entry into the US, solely on the grounds of their nationality and literally at a minute's notice, it seems to me that it would be not be fair to potential attendees to hold an international conference in the US when other alternatives exist. I will be making this point to the various professional bodies with which I am affiliated. ...more

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Oct 15, 2013 Richard Derus rated it it was amazing

My censored review of this classic call to arms can now be seen at my personal blog.

It is a shame that this kind of thought-policing is okay with so many people. "I don't want to think about it" is a fast way not to have permission to think. At all.

But I suppose that's okay with a lot of people. ...more

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Jan 30, 2017 Bettie marked it as to-read

Shelves: swamplandia, precedent1, cold-war-v2

Gutenberg

Opening: [1849, original title: Resistance to Civil Goverment]

I heartily accept the motto, "That government is best which governs least"; and I should like to see it acted up to more rapidly and systematically. Carried out, it finally amounts to this, which also I believe—"That government is best which governs not at all"; and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have. Government is at best but an expedient; but most governments are usually, ...more

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Oct 10, 2016 Liam rated it did not like it · review of another edition

Not too sure what I just read but it did have the occasional interesting point I guess...

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Jan 31, 2011 Rachel rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Written for days past, written for today. Thoreau's discontent with the government is a present issue around the world... And it should be here. So many of our legislators, as in Thoreau's time, are not skilled at legislation and are so disconnected from the people and our needs. I think the title of the mini-book leads some to believe that Thoreau is completely anti-government - not true. He says time and again that a government that is worthy of his respect is one that he will live under. He a ...more

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Sep 12, 2018 Scott rated it really liked it

I was inspired to read this after visiting the Martin Luther King Junior memorial in Atlanta. Gandhi and MLK we’re both inspired by the ideas presented in Civil Disobedience.

My main takeaway is this...Question everything. Don’t take government as infallible truth. While Democracy is clearly the best form of government thus far in history, it is not perfect. If a government doesn’t grow, flex, and scale with societal and technological changes, it’s brittleness will cause it to break, similar to ...more

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Oct 12, 2013 Traveller rated it it was amazing

This:
https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... ...more

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Aug 27, 2008 Jim rated it liked it

Shelves: historical, 1paper, 2non-fiction

He has some wonderful essays, although it must be remembered that he had few personal responsibilities & no family to support. He was too self-centered for a wife & children. I believe he is sincere, if impractical. I think he draws the lines rather tight for the real world some times, but maybe it is that attitude that allowed things to go so wrong since his day...

I've seen him labeled an Anarchist, but I believe he was a Libertarian. He wanted a better government that needed to govern less. ...more

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Mar 28, 2017 Darío rated it really liked it

Shelves: philosophy-and-essays, american

I please myself with imagining a State at least which can afford to be just to all men, and to treat the individual with respect as a neighbor; which even would not think it inconsistent with its own repose if a few were to live aloof from it, not meddling with it, nor embraced by it, who fulfilled all the duties of neighbors and fellow-men. A State which bore this kind of fruit, and suffered it to drop off as fast as it ripened, would prepare the way for a still more perfect and glorious State ...more

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Mar 10, 2012 Booze Hound rated it really liked it

Anti-system and other delusional ideas that will never happen.....just shut up and get a job you 30 year old teenager...

Civil disobedience was a quick read and to the point (much like my sex life). Henry David Thoreau states when the majority rules, in the case of democracy, rarely is the majority just. Democracy relies on physical strength in numbers, rather than what is just. He pretty much brings to question the next step beyond democracy as a political system. Which he envisions is the enlig ...more

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Aug 12, 2016 Nemo rated it liked it · review of another edition

Because Goodreads is apparently cutting off my review, here is the rest of it:

Okay, so it took me 15 days to read a 90 page book but it's Fine.

The first of the essays included in this book is Civil Disobedience, which is of course one of Thoreau's most famous works. It was interesting but not really what I thought it was going to be. I get that the reason it is heralded is what he was discussing specifically in the text has wider applications but I was expecting something a bit broader I guess ...more

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Aug 28, 2011 Julia rated it liked it

Shelves: inspiring

I am a huge fan of Henry David Thoreau. I found Walden inspirational, and Civil Disobedience is a similar, thoughtful work. However, though the ideals are as clearly presented as any essay one could read today, the concepts inherent in this work are not even remotely possible. It struck me as almost amusing that Thoreau would have gladly gone to jail for his principles, but jail, and indeed all of institutions of the United States of America, would be unrecognizable in its present state to our f ...more

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Jul 09, 2012 Schuyler Lystad rated it did not like it

Wow. I really was interested to read this, but he comes off as a self-important ass. Either he knew very little about his world, or his ideas do not hold up to the test of time at all - each page is easy to disprove, and his ideas on liberty are dangerously myopic, possibly contradictory - he wants everything from government but refuses to give it anything (and I don't mean money). I would be surprised if anyone besides Libertarians who have a thought out position in politics could find this wor ...more

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Jan 10, 2015 Susan rated it it was ok

I only read the Civil Disobedience essay. I'm having trouble thinking of anything to say other than "What an insufferable prat Thoreau must have been." A long-winded essay in which he (correctly) finds fault with a government that supports slavery and the Mexican American War, and explains that the only possible solution is to not pay your taxes. ...more

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Aug 30, 2009 Nick Black rated it did not like it

Shelves: pseudointellectual-jibberjabber, unlikely-to-acquire

Despicable. Insipid. Nauseating. I could go on like this for a minute, but doubt you really need me to. Reading this at 15 set me up for a lifetime of not ever wanting to sound like Henry David Thoreau.

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Jun 13, 2018 Jeremy rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: politics

Civil Disobedience: 5 stars
Slavery in Massachusetts: 5 stars
A Plea for Captain John Brown: 4 stars
Walking: 3 stars
Life without Principle: 4 stars

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May 24, 2011 Rebecca rated it it was amazing

Shelves: non-fiction, political

Brilliant! While I don’t agree with every thought of Thoreau’s (an original Libertarian?), how grand it is to read from someone who has a real thought! Every sentence could stand as an individual idea, a great quote. Each lecture is beautifully constructed and well argued.

He does seem, at times, slightly smug, but in the topics I found most convincing, I would rather call his smugness “righteous indignation.” Most telling, though, is the fact that his arguments are germane today.

As I read, I co ...more

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Aug 12, 2018 Reiley rated it really liked it

From the second we started reading "Walden" by Thoreau in English of my junior year, I loved his writing. Everyone in the class, including my teacher, thought he was a crazy, drug-loving, hippie who embodied the "crazy" transcendentalist mentality and values. I think they just couldn't understand an outside of the box point of view from someone who thought completely differently than anyone of his time, and anyone of today. I don't think Thoreau would be able to handle today's world, since he wa ...more

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Apr 01, 2016 Paul rated it liked it · review of another edition

Thoreau is a crank and a grouch and a scold, of course. But there is often more than a glimmer of truth in his diatribes.

Above all, we cannot afford not to live in the present. He is blessed over all mortals who loses no moment of the passing life in remembering the past. Unless our philosophy hears the cock crow in every barn-yard within our horizon, it is belated. That sound commonly reminds us that we are growing rusty and antique in our employments and habits of thought. His philosophy come

...more

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Jan 31, 2015 Fredr rated it really liked it

Interesting thoughts beginning with first sentence "That government is best which governs least" from John L O'Sullivan. It is thought provoking of the injustices that governments condone and how as individuals should handle issues. First printed in 1849. ...more

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Nov 22, 2009 Kyle rated it it was amazing

Recommends it for: Everyone!

Shelves: politics

I love the essay Civil Disobedience. This is probably the 10th time I've read it, and I still always learn something new from it that I didn't quite grasp before. ...more

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Sep 16, 2011 James rated it really liked it

Didn't agree with all of it, or necessarily even most of it, but it's still a wonderful document that influenced Gandhi and MLK, among others. ...more

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Jun 19, 2012 Dan's rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: philosophical-treatise-discources, visionaries-of-breaking-the-chains, anti-authoritative, books-from-authors-i-follow-respect

dusting up this old book. Checking out a few side-lines aspects

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Sep 13, 2013 Jill Nelson rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Love Thoreau, whether he's talking about nature or politics. Yay transcendentalism! ...more

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Feb 18, 2017 Santiago Soria rated it it was amazing

It teaches us to appreciate life and nature.

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Apr 30, 2013 Alex rated it really liked it

On "Resistance to Civil Government:
During the summer of 2010 I lived in Concord, Massachusetts - the home of Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and the Alcott family. I went there for the town's history which began approximately 100 years before these transcendentalists existed and had hardly studied any of them, their movement, or its implications. I lived a mile from Walden Pond and had never read Thoreau's adventures there, a few blocks from the homes of everyone e On "Resistance to Civil Government:
During the summer of 2010 I lived in Concord, Massachusetts - the home of Henry David Thoreau, Ralph Waldo Emerson, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and the Alcott family. I went there for the town's history which began approximately 100 years before these transcendentalists existed and had hardly studied any of them, their movement, or its implications. I lived a mile from Walden Pond and had never read Thoreau's adventures there, a few blocks from the homes of everyone else listed and only came to comprehend what each of these individuals meant to our world through interactions with visitors to the National Park where I worked. Upon my return to the good ole PNW, I told myself that I would dive head first into exploring this history and connect its overwhelming presence to my experience in Concord - and, so, I've picked up "Civil Disobedience", originally titled "Resistance to Civil Government", and began there.

Henry David Thoreau was a born, lived, and passed native of Concord. He thought of it as "the most estimable place in all the world", and rightfully so in my opinion. Born in 1817, Thoreau witnessed a Concord that had seen three major wars - one of which began on its soil - and had made a name for itself as a small, spunky, and fairly influential town in its nearly 200 years of existence. Sitting 18 miles NE of Boston, Concord had become a prosperous market town along the route into and out of Boston. In the 18th century at least (my primary era of study), it maintained an abundance of natural resources, such as meadow hay (used primarily for livestock feed), livestock, lumber, and just about anything that could be tilled in the soil. It had not only been the home of many influential characters over the years, but it had also become an influential character in and of itself as the hub of innovative ideas, such as the aforementioned transcendentalist movement as well as prominent liberal (as we use the term today), Unitarianism.

It was here in the town of Concord where Thoreau chose to take a stand against his country and the state of Massachusetts by refusing to pay taxes in protest to the fighting of Mexico for the annexation of Texas, widely assumed to increase slave territory. Thoreau found himself in jail for a single night in July of 1846 and fighting would continue for two years afterwards. "Resistance to Civil Government" was an essay written in response to this event in his adventurous life.

He opens with a ideological commentary on government and a call to every citizen to make a stand and demand the American government to be better. "Can there not be a government in which majorities do not virtually decide right and wrong, but conscience? - in which majorities decide only those questions to which the rule of expediency is applicable?... I think that we should be men first and subjects afterward. It is not desirable to cultivate a respect for the law, so much as for the right. The only obligation which I have a right to assume is to do at any time what I think is right." I had never thought of government in quite these terms before, as the embodiment of the moral consciousness of the men who create it, the men for whom it is created. 'Government' in my mind has always been its own entity, a structural system which is made up of men elected to keep the peace and establish justice. But, as Thoreau points out, is it really a just system to have majority rule in the first place? No - I think not. His more libertarian view of government complains of my assumption of government exactly - as the entity becomes less about men and more about the system, it become a capital 'G' Government and more like a machine. Its presumed nature of goodness and moral consciousness is lost.

In this sense, it seems to me that the dichotomy between choosing to vote or not vote in today's world is still not enough to make an impact on our collective consciousness, that activism is the key to making right. "A wise man," Thoreau writes, "will not leave the the right to the mercy of chance, nor wish it to prevail through the power of the majority. There is but little virtue in the action of masses of men." While his single protest was not enough to make any notable difference in the system nor in the minds of his contemporaries, it was enough for him to set an example of how a spark can ignite change if people will it. Simply having an opinion and stating it freely to those who would listen was not enough for Thoreau, but action was - and still is - the only means through which to make a difference towards right; "Action from principle, the perception and the performance of right, changes things and relations; it is essentially revolutionary, and does not consist wholly with anything which was. It not only divides states and churches, it divides families; ay, it divides the individual, separating the diabolical in him from the divine." Unjust laws and injustice cannot be remedied if society is content to obey without protest. Apathy among the minority cannot by default assume the justice of the majority. Through example, Thoreau calls for change in that "if it [the machine of government] is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law. Let your life be a counter friction to stop the machine."

Government, having lost its essence of moral consciousness, is the antagonist in Thoreau's essay as well as his reality, more specifically when Government acts against common virtue while claiming to represent the common. In reference to legal human slavery, Thoreau uses the word "copartnership" to describe the relationship of a man to his government (ie, the state of Massachusetts) when neither chose to take a stand, implying that apathy is an active choice and that those who decline to act are just as guilty. "Under a government which imprisons any unjustly, the true place for a just man is also a prison." - How many just and honest men exist in Thoreau's worldview? Not many. Does this statement seem to be a bit extreme in addressing the realities of how our government works? Yes, I think so - but his point still stands. Those who speak without action have made no real change at all, but continue to abide by the system for fear of repercussions which Thoreau views as further government sanctioned injustices that can and should be fought by those honest and just men who see the truth of the matter.

Perhaps Thoreau's most moving and personal point for me is a lesson which I learned about 4 years ago in my young life, a lesson that had not and could not be taught by any familial example I had seen before. It sets me apart from my family and most friends to this day as a value that I hold dearly and try to live by even when realistic obstacles get in my way; "I do not care to trace the course of my dollar, if I could, till it buys a man or a musket to shoot with, - the dollar is innocent, - but I am concerned to trace the effects of my allegiance." Economic protest is essentially what led to my current vegetarianism and my emphasis to purchase local goods as often as possible for the well-being of myself and my community. In Thoreau's day, he protested human trafficking and slavery within his own country; in our day, we are economically bound to support the same things elsewhere through outsourcing. There are too many middle men in today's modern world to truly see the progress of our dollars, though it is not hard to assume the worst and to try to counteract it accordingly.

The problem in his solution of protest and isolation is that our world has become too big to make sweeping changes from the ground up - it requires slow processes and masses of minority ideas working together to make small pushes of progress. It is incredibly easy to see the world and all of its problems and feel too small to make an impact and that it is too impossible to remove oneself from the fold and live a life of isolation. Thoreau had Walden, freedom to escape to an unclaimed forest and do with it what he would. Such a situation can hardly exist in present day. He wonders, "Is a democracy, such as we know it, the last improvement possible in government?" Today, we are watching this question play out in the Middle East, anxiously awaiting the answer of whether or not democracy can continue to be considered a higher form of government at all. He concludes, "There will never be a really free and enlightened State until the State comes to recognize the individual as a higher and independent power, from which all its own power and authority are derived, and treats him accordingly." But if this is the case, how can we keep a society as free and as large as ours safe as well as free? Thoreau opposes a standing army, opposes the arm of the government meddling in the affairs of other independent nations, but modern society has clearly moved beyond that debate as being valid. Ideologically, his positions seem logical and reasonable to expect in a time far removed from our own. But that doesn't mean that they should be removed from discussion and remembrance all together.

What I take from this essay in full is that if there is injustice in the world, do your best to fight it. If you are unable or unwilling to be active in dispelling injustice, at least be conscious of its existence and strive to live an aware life. Too many people turn a blind eye to the problems of our world, which have multiplied near exponentially since Henry David Thoreau fought a more direct injustice 160 years ago. Battles are still worth waging if change is to follow - I fear, however, that apathy has become (or remained?) the majority and the protest of the few is the only means through which to create change.

"I think sometimes, Why, this people mean well, they are only ignorant; they would do better if they knew how: why give your neighbors this pain to treat you as they are not inclined to? But I think again, This is no reason why I should do as they do, or permit others to suffer much greater pain of a different kind." ...more

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Sep 21, 2019 Pedro Tomatis rated it it was amazing · review of another edition

Food for thought.

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Aug 12, 2020 Kenneth Wade rated it it was ok

Shelves: 2020

I understand the significance of Thoreau’s work in a historical context, but it is pretty dry and difficult to read through a modern perspective. I’m glad this exists, but meh.

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Jul 04, 2020 James Biser rated it it was amazing

Shelves: 2020

Thoreau is a fine writer and this book is full of a collection of fine essays. The mind of every reader is strengthened to learn at the feet of this master.

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Feb 28, 2017 Primo Flores rated it it was ok

Shelves: classics, reviewed, non-fiction, short-stories

Oh man, David.... David David David...What the hell was this?, I thought these series of essays would be full of social commentary, that I'd be enlightened by one of the precursors of the "green anarchy" ethos, but again, What the hell, buddy?!, Only one essay about Civil Desobedience, and then one essay sucking a landlord's dick, the rest of them were about hiking, the life of forests, pines and shit, hell, at some point I found myself reading about apples.

I tend to forget how easy it was to be ...more

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About Henry David Thoreau

Henry David Thoreau

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Henry David Thoreau (born David Henry Thoreau) was an American author, naturalist, transcendentalist, tax resister, development critic, philosopher, and abolitionist who is best known for Walden, a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings, and his essay, Civil Disobedience, an argument for individual resistance to civil government in moral opposition to an unjust state.

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“The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation. What is called resignation is confirmed desperation. From the desperate city you go into the desperate country, and have to console yourself with the bravery of minks and muskrats. A stereotyped but unconscious despair is concealed even under what are called the games and amusements of mankind. There is no play in them, for this comes after work. But it is a characteristic of wisdom not to do desperate things..” — 2161 likes

“If the injustice is part of the necessary friction of the machine of government, let it go, let it go: perchance it will wear smooth--certainly the machine will wear out… but if it is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then I say, break the law. Let your life be a counter-friction to stop the machine. What I have to do is to see, at any rate, that I do not lend myself to the wrong which I condemn.” — 215 likes

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