Walking - Henry David Thoreau

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Résumé :
In Walking, Henry David 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. This new edition of Thoreau's classic work includes annotations and a biographical essay.

Biographie:
Henry David Thoreau (July 12, 1817 - May 6, 1862) was an American essayist, poet, and philosopher. 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.

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 Yankee 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.

He 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 such notable figures as Leo Tolstoy, Mahatma Gandhi, and Martin Luther King Jr.

Sommaire:
Henry David Thoreau was born in Concord, Massachusetts, in 1817. An American writer, naturalist, philosopher, surveyor, and social reformer, he became one of the central figures of the Transcendentalist movement. He studied at Harvard College and later worked as a teacher, lecturer, pencil maker, and land surveyor while devoting much of his life to writing and the close observation of nature.Thoreau is best known for Walden, his account of the two years, two months, and two days he spent living in a cabin he built near Walden Pond. His essay Civil Disobedience argued that individuals have a moral responsibility to resist unjust government and later influenced political and social reformers around the world. His journals, essays, and books reveal a lifelong concern with simplicity, personal freedom, environmental awareness, and the relationship between human beings and the natural world.In addition to Walden, Thoreau wrote A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers, Cape Cod, and The Maine Woods. He died in Concord in 1862 at the age of forty-four. Although his work received limited attention during his lifetime, he later came to be recognized as one of America's most influential writers and an important early voice for conservation, nonviolent resistance, and deliberate living....