Henry David Thoreau
![Thoreau in 1856](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/2a/Benjamin_D._Maxham_-_Henry_David_Thoreau_-_Restored_-_greyscale_-_straightened.jpg)
Thoreau's books, articles, essays, journals, and poetry amount to more than 20 volumes. Among his lasting contributions are his writings on natural history and philosophy, in which he anticipated the methods and findings of ecology and environmental history, two sources of modern-day environmentalism. His literary style interweaves close observation of nature, personal experience, pointed rhetoric, symbolic meanings, and historical lore, while displaying a poetic sensibility, philosophical austerity, and attention to practical detail. He was also deeply interested in the idea of survival in the face of hostile elements, historical change, and natural decay; at the same time he advocated abandoning waste and illusion in order to discover life's true essential needs.
Thoreau was a lifelong abolitionist, delivering lectures that attacked the fugitive slave law while praising the writings of Wendell Phillips and defending the abolitionist John Brown. Thoreau's philosophy of civil disobedience later influenced the political thoughts and actions of notable figures such as Leo Tolstoy, Mahatma Gandhi, and Martin Luther King Jr.
Thoreau is sometimes referred to retrospectively as an anarchist, but may perhaps be more properly regarded as a ''proto-anarchist''. In his seminal essay, "Civil Disobedience", Thoreau wrote as follows:
"I heartily accept the '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 '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.... But, to speak practically and as a citizen, unlike those who call themselves no-government men, I ask for, not at once no government, but ''at once'' a better government."Provided by Wikipedia
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Walden, and on the Duty of Civil Disobedience. by Thoreau, Henry
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Slavery In Massachusetts. by Thoreau, Henry David
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The Illustrated ""A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers"" by Thoreau, Henry David
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The Maine Woods. by Thoreau, Henry David
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Cape Cod. by Thoreau, Henry David
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Walking. by Thoreau, Henry David
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Walden. by Thoreau, Henry David
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Civil disobedience / Henry David Thoreau. by Thoreau, Henry David
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Life Without Principle. by Thoreau, Henry David
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Cape Cod. by Thoreau, Henry David
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Civil disobedience : on the duty of / Henry David Thoreau. by Thoreau, Henry David, 1817-1862
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Walden : life in the woods / Henry David Thoreau. by Thoreau, Henry David, 1817-1862
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Economy ; Where I lived, and what I lived for ; and, Solitude / Henry D. Thoreau ; edited with introduction, Michael P. Arya. by Thoreau, Henry David, 1817-1862
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A Plea For Captain John Brown / Henry David Thoreau. by Thoreau, Henry David, 1817-1862
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Essays : a fully annotated edition / Henry D. Thoreau ; edited by Jeffrey S. Cramer. by Thoreau, Henry David, 1817-1862
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The quotable Thoreau / collected and edited by Jeffrey S. Cramer. by Thoreau, Henry David, 1817-1862
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Walking with Thoreau : a literary guide to the mountains of New England / writings by Henry David Thoreau ; commentary by William Howarth. by Thoreau, Henry David, 1817-1862
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Walden : a fully annotated edition / Henry D. Thoreau ; edited by Jeffrey S. Cramer. by Thoreau, Henry David, 1817-1862
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The illustrated Walden / Henry D. Thoreau ; with photographs from the Gleason Collection ; text edited by J. Lyndon Shanley. by Thoreau, Henry David, 1817-1862
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Canoeing in the wilderness / Henry David Thoreau. by Thoreau, Henry David, 1817-1862
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