Walden, Civil Disobedience & Walking (3 Classics in One Volume): Three Most Important Works of Thoreau, Including Author's Biography

by Henry David Thoreau

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Walden details Thoreau's experiences over the course of two years, two months, and two days in a cabin he built in the woods near Walden Pond, Massachusetts. Thoreau compresses the time into a single calendar year and uses passages of four seasons to symbolize human development. Part memoir, part personal quest, the book is a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings, where Thoreau hoped to gain a more objective understanding of society through personal introspection.
Civil Disobedience or Resistance to Civil Government is an essay by Thoreau in which he argues that individuals should not permit governments to overrule or atrophy their consciences, and that they have a duty to avoid allowing such acquiescence to enable the government to make them the agents of injustice.
Walking is a transcendental essay in which Thoreau talks about the importance of nature to mankind, and how people cannot survive without nature, physically, mentally, and spiritually, yet we seem to be spending more and more time entrenched by society. For Thoreau walking is a self-reflective spiritual act that occurs only when you are away from society, that allows you to learn about who you are, and find other aspects of yourself that have been chipped away by society.
Content:
Books
Walden (Life in the Woods)
Civil Disobedience
Walking
Biography
Thoreau by Ralph Waldo Emerson
Henry David Thoreau (1817-1862) was an American essayist, poet, philosopher, abolitionist, naturalist, surveyor, and historian. A leading transcendentalist, Thoreau is best known for his book Walden, a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings, and his essay Civil Disobedience, an argument for disobedience to an unjust state.

Genres: Classics, Nonfiction, Politics, Philosophy

198 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1849

About the author

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.

Thoreau's books, articles, essays, journals, and poetry total over 20 volumes. Among his lasting contributions were his writings on natural history and philosophy, where he anticipated the methods and findings of ecology and environmental history, two sources of modern day environmentalism.

In 1817, Henry David Thoreau was born in Massachusetts. He graduated from Harvard University in 1837, taught briefly, then turned to writing and lecturing. Becoming a Transcendentalist and good friend of Emerson, Thoreau lived the life of simplicity he advocated in his writings. His two-year experience in a hut in Walden, on land owned by Emerson, resulted in the classic, Walden: Life in the Woods (1854). During his sojourn there, Thoreau refused to pay a poll tax in protest of slavery and the Mexican war, for which he was jailed overnight. His activist convictions were expressed in the groundbreaking On the Duty of Civil Disobedience (1849). In a diary he noted his disapproval of attempts to convert the Algonquins "from their own superstitions to new ones." In a journal he noted dryly that it is appropriate for a church to be the ugliest building in a village, "because it is the one in which human nature stoops to the lowest and is the most disgraced." (Cited by James A. Haught in 2000 Years of Disbelief.) When Parker Pillsbury sought to talk about religion with Thoreau as he was dying from tuberculosis, Thoreau replied: "One world at a time."

Thoreau's philosophy of nonviolent resistance influenced the political thoughts and actions of such later figures as Leo Tolstoy, Mohandas K. Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, Jr. D. 1862.

More: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/tho...

http://thoreau.eserver.org/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Da...

http://transcendentalism-legacy.tamu....

http://www.biography.com/people/henry...

Reviews

[Dorum · Rating 4 out of 5]

Some of the passages are incredibly unfair. Part of it is also very lyrical. One has, nevertheless, to see something bigger in Thoreau. Part of his critique of society and of his reasoning really is spot on. Furthermore, he is one of those cases of mystics who actually put their money where their mouth is. His unfairness is not really showing a limitation of his spirit, but it is sometimes proceeding out of a an enthusiasm his youth.

However, I need to add some things here. The guy was not a saint. Walden is not really THAT remote. He wasn't in some ascetic way out there. He was going every week and seeing his friends in nearby Concord, Massachusetts.

But at least he tried his hand at this... One might say that he is one of those Instagram influencers. So take it with a grain of salt. But don't throw the baby with the water.

I guess his best part is the first chapter and his talk with the Bakers, at Baker's farm.

[Mimi Wolske · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don't know how many times I've read "Civil Disobedience" and each time, I enjoy it. The same thing can be said for "Walden Pond". This is my first time to read "Walking".

Thoreau can expound his points with a thoroughness that makes me wish I could just skip, but then I'd miss out on so many points.

I'm not giving this 5 stars because I liked it, but because the selections chosen are ones that demonstrate why Thoreau's writings last.

[Adam Georgiou · Rating 4 out of 5]

https://writing.adamgeorgiou.com/revi...

This took me forever to finish, it ending up as my in between book, the one I'd pick up and read a few pages of when I wasn't focused on something more interesting. As a (pretty common) rule I try not to put down a book until I've finished it, but every now and again one slips through, barring me not also damning it as worthless (which is rare). Is this a weird habit? To be in one way principled, to the point of dogma, about finishing what I've started, but then also to have a stack of books, months untouched, that I've convinced myself I'm still reading? What's that say about me? Shrug. A little tidbit. (Also, I treat these reviews like journal entries.)

Anyway, I finished the second half or so in one big gulp, and now I don't know why I ever put it down.

Walden is canon among the vagabond hippy types. I first heard about it in Sean Penn's Into the Wild where the main character quits life after graduating college to go stomp around America. I heard it again in various interviews with people involved in the #VanLife crowd. Funny how books and ideas tend to form these clusters of relevance. You start following a branch of thought and all the sudden your in what seemed like obscure territory when looked at from the surface, but after having dived deep you realize it's all familiar and connected. I hear two different sources recommend the same thing, and I realize it's my perception that's got them marked as different, and that personal dissonance is what lights my fire to learn more. Here's a connection I have yet to make but is apparently substantial. So I read the book.

The sentiment of Walden is all about personal exploration. Get rid of the status quo, go down to the minimums, and see what you find. I like to think that in the modern this kind of a thing would be described as a dopamine reset. Rest all your sensors so you can use them to once again navigate. I'd love to try it. And in the meantime, see what you see. Thoreau saw a lot. Some arbitrary highlights:

1. The description of the black and red ant war. The way he analogies it to humans. He trivializes and sanctifies it at the same time. Great stuff.

2. The description of red squirrels as happy-go-lucky manics. If you've ever hunted in the North East, you'll know he gets it spot on.

3. His description of routine as rutted trails, hard to get rid of. And his going to say leaving is the equivalent of starting a new life, something that can be done several times with one body.

4. He's distinction between blind patriotism and patriotism for a system that has, practically, brought to life benevolent potential. i.e., loving the land, but being ignorant to what makes the land exceptional.

I also like his balance for the abstract and concrete. There's so many vivid descriptions of real yet rare stuff: stoves, wood piles, walks, animals, etc. And then at the same time, there's a lot of sophisticated, well founded moral in here too.

Walden needs an update, though. As a piece of history, as the starting point for more modern sentiments and the actions they inspire, it's interesting and sacred, for sure. But it's hard to parse. It's written in a very lyrical, common language; but a lot of it is language we don't use anymore. So if you're looking for a modern guide on how to live in the woods, or an explanation for why you should, then this might be a bit tough to crack. However, if you want to know where it all started, and get a sense for what a diligent, focused, independent soul did when breaking free from a rigidity since past, this is the book.

Anyway, some random thoughts...


On the Civil Disobedience essay: it makes you wonder when, across different time periods of seemingly drastically different setting, you start to hear the same arguments being made against or for government. Thoreau makes a classic libertarian plea that sounds almost identical to the group's current canon, but, at least to the naive me it seems that, obviously the government of his time was way smaller and slower than today and obviously the amount of duty felt and practiced by the individuals of his time was necessarily higher simply by the times lack of convenience and technology, character of the people aside.

And yet here we stand however later, with an undoubtedly more hospitable country than the savage times before medicine and plumbing and roads were taken for granted, making the same -- for whatever reason compelling! -- pleas. It's all very confusing. Are these perspectives artifacts of a yet to be understood higher-level mechanism? I don't know...

[Ongeri Areri · Rating 5 out of 5]

Walden, and On the Duty of Civil Disobedience written by Henry David Thoreau. This book is an anthology of two separate books by Thoreau. The first, that is Walden, is a collection of his experiences while in solitude at Walden Pond, Concord, Massachusetts, USA.

Unsatisfied with civil life, Thoreau seeks to try out a different kind of life away from civilised society. During his sojorn at Walden Pond, living in complete isolation, he exermines that he finds the tranquillity of solitude life, to be more satisfying fulfilling and rewarding. All the while, he eats only that which he produces by the work of his hands, he pays no rent since he build the house himself, pays no taxes because he does not transact with anybody during this time and accrues no debt because he is self-reliant. He successfully practices this mode of living for two years and two months.

He compares the life that he leads in the woods to that led by the men in the civilised world and he finds the latter wanting in quality. He attributes the lack of quality of life in the civilised world to the obsessive-consumptive habits common in civilisations. This habits ensure that men are forever commited to their endless works, the chief end of labours being, not to afford the necessities of life but mere superfluities. He reasons that this could go on for an entire life without men realising it or if they ever do, then it's certainly too late to do anything. In his own words, “men labor under a mistake. The better part of the man is soon plowed into the soil for compost. By a seeming fate, commonly called necessity, they are employed, as it says in an old book, laying up treasures which moth and rust will corrupt and thieves break through and steal. It is a fool's life, as they will find when they get to the end of it, if not before”. He rebukes such lifestyles as deficient of divinity.

Thoreau argues that men can unshackle themselves from this mode of life that makes life stressful, difficult and unhappy and as a result hinders the elevation of mankind if they gave up their prejudices and tried out other modes of life which he asserts are “as many ways as there can be drawn radii from one centre”.
At large, the book is an eye opener. Thoreau's view of the world lays out a different perspective on life compared to that which many people are accustomed to and opens to the reader a different approach to life.

On the Duty of Civil Disobedience also known as Resistance to Civil Government argues that the people reserve the right to resist their government if the government goes rogue, becomes unjust or does not perform it's mandate. To quote Thoreau, “All men recognize the right of revolution; that is, the right to refuse allegiance to, and to resist, the government, when its tyranny or its inefficiency are great and unendurable.” He also goes further to propose different forms of resistance such as refusal to comply with the law, refusal to pay taxes and as a last resort, violence.

Throught this essay, Thoreau maintains that governments should be guided by morals as opposed to laws, for unjust laws exist. At some point, he questions democracy as a form of government because it seems not right or fair to him, that the majority should have their way. In this he argues that: “when the power is once in the hands of the people, a majority are permitted, and for a long period continue, to rule, is not because they are most likely to be in the right, nor because this seems fairest to the minority, but because they are physically the strongest. But a government in which the majority rule in all cases cannot be based on justice, even as far as men understand it. Can there not be a government in which majorities do not virtually decide right and wrong, but conscience?” Thoreau strongly believes that; “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.”

This particular essay is said to have influenced many people among them notably Mahatma Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. both of whom led the fight for civil rights in their countries. 

[Wanda · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought it was amazing that just when I’ve decided to sell everything and simplify my life, that I would choose to read a book that speaks to that. Thoreau, of course, one of the first and most famous naturalists, and and proponent of living a simple life, brings strong arguments to bear....why be a slave to possessions, why be a glutton in any sense.

I’ve recently decided to rid myself of many earthly encumbrances, sell or give away most of the things I own, and this very gentle, simple, intelligent man has spoken to my deepest yearnings through the 160 or 170 years since writing this book. A book still so very pertinent to someone yearning to be free.

[Robin Wittkopp · Rating 3 out of 5]

Didn't like there was no break in between the stories just flowed from on to the next. Had several wonderful quotes and insights. Some parts very dull but I really enjoyed it. I would listen to more or his work.

[Alfred Weber · Rating 3 out of 5]

It’s been since way back in high school since I read any Thoreau. He had some interesting insights but I often found it pretentious and condescending.

I related more to his ideas on civil disobedience. He had some rather prescient thoughts on government and the abolition of slavery.

[Holly · Rating 2 out of 5]

I’m not sure I can fairly rate this book. Maybe I wasn’t in the mood for it? I struggled to stay awake. Too much nature and not enough substance. Yawn. 1.5 stars. Sorry not sorry.

[Gavin Bush · Rating 1 out of 5]

Really confusing, dont understand it, quite boring, Thoreau needs to smile a little, live your life man jeez

[Zoe Brown · Rating 4 out of 5]

nelped this shit

[Clara · Rating 1 out of 5]

I will become visibly enraged if someone tries to get me to actually read this and not just skim it. On the other hand, I was one of two people in my English class who read ANY of the book at all, so I guess that's cool

In Full: dnf (sorry Mr. Horne)

[Victory Lee · Rating 5 out of 5]

Brilliant. I also like the fact that this version combines 3 Thoreau classics.