Walden and Civil Disobedience

Henry David Thoreau reflects on life, politics, and society in these two inspiring masterworks: Walden and Civil Disobedience.

In 1845, Thoreau moved to a cabin that he built with his own hands along the shores of Walden Pond in Massachusetts. Shedding the trivial ties that he felt bound much of humanity, Thoreau reaped from the land both physically and mentally, and pursued truth in the quiet of nature. In Walden, he explains how separating oneself from the world of men can truly awaken the sleeping self. Thoreau holds fast to the notion that you have not truly existed until you adopt such a lifestyle—and only then can you reenter society, as an enlightened being.
 
These simple but profound musings—as well as “Civil Disobedience,” his protest against the government’s interference with civil liberty—have inspired many to embrace his philosophy of individualism and love of nature. More than a century and a half later, his message is more timely than ever.
 
With an Introduction by W.S. Merwin
and an Afterword by Will Howarth

• Walking
• Nature
• Refuge: An Unnatural History of Family and Place
• Self-Reliance and Other Essays (Dover Thrift Editions)
• Life on the Mississippi (Signet Classics)
• The Essential Writings of Ralph Waldo Emerson (Modern Library Classics)
• Self-reliance and Other Essays
• Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth
• Between the World and Me
• The Autobiography of Malcolm X: As Told to Alex Haley