Henry David Thoreau

<p><b>Henry David Thoreau</b> (July 12, 1817&nbsp;– May 6, 1862) was an American author, poet, philosopher, <a title="Abolitionism in the United States" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abolitionism_in_the_United_States">abolitionist</a>, <a title="Natural history" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_history">naturalist</a>, <a title="Tax resistance" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tax_resistance">tax resister</a>, <a title="Development criticism" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Development_criticism">development critic</a>, <a title="Surveying" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surveying">surveyor</a>, historian, and leading <a title="Transcendentalism" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transcendentalism">transcendentalist</a>.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-2"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_David_Thoreau#cite_note-2">[2]</a></sup> He is best known for his book <i><a title="Walden" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walden">Walden</a></i>, a reflection upon <a title="Simple living" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Simple_living">simple living</a> in natural surroundings, and his essay <i><a title="Resistance to Civil Government" class="mw-redirect" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resistance_to_Civil_Government">Resistance to Civil Government</a></i> (also known as Civil Disobedience), an argument for disobedience to an unjust state.

Thoreau's books, articles, essays, journals, and poetry total over 20 volumes. Among his lasting contributions were his <a title="Nature writing" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nature_writing">writings on natural history</a> and philosophy, where he anticipated the methods and findings of ecology and <a title="Environmental history" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_history">environmental history</a>, two sources of modern-day <a title="Environmentalism" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmentalism">environmentalism</a>. His <a title="Literary language" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Literary_language">literary</a> style interweaves close natural observation, personal experience, pointed rhetoric, <a title="Symbol" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Symbol">symbolic</a> meanings, and historical lore, while displaying a poetic sensibility, philosophical <a title="Asceticism" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asceticism">austerity</a>, and "Yankee" love of practical detail.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-ReferenceA_3-0"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_David_Thoreau#cite_note-ReferenceA-3">[3]</a></sup> 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 <a title="Illusion" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illusion">illusion</a> in order to discover life's true essential needs.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-ReferenceA_3-1"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_David_Thoreau#cite_note-ReferenceA-3">[3]</a></sup>

He was a lifelong abolitionist, delivering lectures that attacked the <a title="Fugitive slave laws" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fugitive_slave_laws">Fugitive Slave Law</a> while praising the writings of <a title="Wendell Phillips" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wendell_Phillips">Wendell Phillips</a> and defending abolitionist <a title="John Brown (abolitionist)" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Brown(abolitionist)">John Brown</a>. Thoreau's philosophy of <a title="Civil disobedience" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_disobedience">civil disobedience</a> later influenced the political thoughts and actions of such notable figures as <a title="Leo Tolstoy" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leo_Tolstoy">Leo Tolstoy</a>, <a title="Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi" class="mw-redirect" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohandas_Karamchand_Gandhi">Mohandas Gandhi</a>, and <a title="Martin Luther King, Jr." href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Martin_Luther_King,Jr.">Martin Luther King, Jr.</a>

Thoreau is sometimes cited as an <a title="Anarchism" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchism">anarchist</a>.<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-4"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_David_Thoreau#cite_note-4">[4]</a></sup> Though <i>Civil Disobedience</i> seems to call for improving rather than abolishing government — "I ask for, not at once no government, but <i>at once</i> a better government"<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-resistance_5-0"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_David_Thoreau#cite_note-resistance-5">[5]</a></sup> — the direction of this improvement points toward anarchism: "'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."<sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-resistance_5-1"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_David_Thoreau#cite_note-resistance-5">[5]</a></sup> Richard Drinnon partly blames Thoreau for the ambiguity, noting that Thoreau's "sly satire, his liking for wide margins for his writing, and his fondness for paradox provided ammunition for widely divergent interpretations of 'Civil Disobedience</p>

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