Walden and Civil Disobedience eBook Henry David Thoreau
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Walden is an American book written by noted transcendentalist Henry David Thoreau, a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings. The work is part personal declaration of independence, social experiment, voyage of spiritual discovery, satire, and manual for self-reliance. It details Thoreau's experiences over the course of two years, two months, and two days in a cabin he built near Walden Pond, amidst woodland owned by his friend and mentor Ralph Waldo Emerson, near Concord, Massachusetts. The book compresses the time into a single calendar year and uses passages of four seasons to symbolize human development. By immersing himself in nature, Thoreau hoped to gain a more objective understanding of society through personal introspection. Simple living and self-sufficiency were Thoreau's other goals, and the whole project was inspired by transcendentalist philosophy, a central theme of the American Romantic Period.
Civil Disobedience is an essay by Thoreau. In it, Thoreau 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. Thoreau was motivated in part by his disgust with slavery and the Mexican–American War. Indian independence leader Mahatma Gandhi was impressed by Thoreau's arguments. American civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was also influenced by this essay.
Walden and Civil Disobedience eBook Henry David Thoreau
This little book has a big heart and is well worth reading on your Kindle. I have some printed versions, but recently had the opportunity to visit Walden pond (a state reservation) near Concord, MA, and loaded the Kindle version on my Kindle Fire as I could then read it without having my book suffer travel wear and tear. So I took the train from Boston, somewhere close to Harvard University, towards Concord, and spent the day walking the pathways surrounding the pond. I could read the book and search for matching descriptions of the pond area as described by Henry Thoreau. That was a lot of fun. The train line still runs on its original track, and you can imagine Henry listening to the whistle and seeing the smoke of the train. The park and pond is beautiful, and combined with the book and Henry Thoreau's stories, transfers one back in time to another world, a world that was both different and similar to the world that we know. There is a life-size model of Henry Thoreau's cabin (he lived in this cabin for 2 years and 2 months, and started construction late March 1845) in the parking lot across the road, and construction has started on a new visitors centre. Load this book on your Kindle and visit the pond...Product details
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Walden and Civil Disobedience eBook Henry David Thoreau Reviews
Review of ANNOTATED EDITION, not of Thoreau's work. Potentially great idea. Many of the annotations were superficial or unnecessary, although others helpful. Biggest problem with this is the printer's layout, which has two careless oversights size and position on page. Two pages of text have been squeezed onto a single page (to allow the side-by-side commentary), resulting in tiny print. Tough on anyone over 40. Then, the printer left wide margins on the *outside* of the page, and squeezed Thoreau's text into the binding. Really foolish use of the available space.
The result is something that could have been fascinating being just plain awkward and unsatisfying to handle and read.
I first read "Walden" in a freshmen seminar course in American Lit, and it was quite daunting reading at the time. Thoreau seemed an over-rated author he darts from topic to topic with little to no transition, he quotes obscure passages, he sermonizes. And perhaps most frustrating of all, he wants his writing to be ambiguous (see for instance, Chapter 18), and for an assiduous college student eager to absorb and analyze, this can be quite an overwhelming experience. So, I got very little of Thoreau at the time.
Ten year's later, I decide that I would pick "Walden" up again. I told myself that I would stop whenever the reading became too discursive or abstract... And I did not stop until I reached the end!
As any student of early American lit. knows, Thoreau built a small house for himself in the woods of Walden Pond in Concord, MA, where he lived for two years (1845-1847), documenting his experiences living there in "Walden." He hoed beans for a living, lived a mile from his nearest neighbor and survived on the absolute minimum that he could. In his downtime, he would swim, fish, read and take in his surroundings, describing every sight and sound with the utmost care. Thoreau creates for his reader an unforgettable Nature-observing experience with such richness of detail that we feel we are right there with him. We hear the owl's cry, we witness the loon diving into the pond and the two ants going head-to-head in battle, we see the blue of Walden Pond. He is a student of Nature of the highest order and extracts from each of these experiences a parable about humanity what we lack and how we can be free. For Thoreau, Walden Pond is a place of purity, an oasis, an Eastern paradise on earth, a Ganges.
An ardent non-conformist, Thoreau also uses this book as a sounding board for his "radical" views and practices. He detests the railroad and its encroachment upon his land (and more generally, that of technology on human and animal life). He refuses to pay taxes to a government that supports slavery and the Mexican War (for which he is briefly imprisoned during one of his sallies to the village). He prefers Eastern spirituality and meditation to Western religiosity. He spurns the high life and abstains from drinking and eating meat. He believes that man is in a dormant intellectual state, from which he can one day rise and embrace the dawn. And the list continues...
Thoreau's prose is also rather unique. What one must remember is that he is faithful student of Emerson and like Emerson, his paragraphs often contain non sequiturs, digressions and sometimes outright contradictions. It was perhaps this lack of logical linearity that initially kept from enjoying his work as a college student. We must be indulgent with Thoreau his wit, his aphorisms, his acumen are well worth the sometimes uncomfortable task of deciphering his prose. I am very glad that at nearly the same age as Thoreau, I took a journey to Walden Pond with him.
It was a wonderful experience to actually feel like I was there with Thoreau at Walden Pond. The way he studied and described simply living and the appreciation of nature fits right into my values. I loved having insight to a life that took place so many years ago through his eyes, and with his mind and heart. He expresses his beliefs about life and society so eloquently. At times he goes into great detail in his observations, but then masterfully makes a valid point that is truly inspiring. This is a book that really makes you think about the purpose of our existence in this world, our values, and how we should live.
This little book has a big heart and is well worth reading on your . I have some printed versions, but recently had the opportunity to visit Walden pond (a state reservation) near Concord, MA, and loaded the version on my Fire as I could then read it without having my book suffer travel wear and tear. So I took the train from Boston, somewhere close to Harvard University, towards Concord, and spent the day walking the pathways surrounding the pond. I could read the book and search for matching descriptions of the pond area as described by Henry Thoreau. That was a lot of fun. The train line still runs on its original track, and you can imagine Henry listening to the whistle and seeing the smoke of the train. The park and pond is beautiful, and combined with the book and Henry Thoreau's stories, transfers one back in time to another world, a world that was both different and similar to the world that we know. There is a life-size model of Henry Thoreau's cabin (he lived in this cabin for 2 years and 2 months, and started construction late March 1845) in the parking lot across the road, and construction has started on a new visitors centre. Load this book on your and visit the pond...
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