

His activist convictions were expressed in the groundbreaking On the Duty of Civil Disobedience (1849). During his sojourn there, Thoreau refused to pay a poll tax in protest of slavery and the Mexican war, for which he was jailed overnight. His two-year experience in a hut in Walden, on land owned by Emerson, resulted in the classic, Walden: Life in the Woods (1854). Becoming a Transcendentalist and good friend of Emerson, Thoreau lived the life of simplicity he advocated in his writings.

He graduated from Harvard University in 1837, taught briefly, then turned to writing and lecturing. In 1817, Henry David Thoreau was born in Massachusetts. Among his lasting contributions were his writings on natural history and philosophy, where he anticipated the methods and findings of ecology and environmental history, two sources of modern day environmentalism.

Thoreau's books, articles, essays, journals, and poetry total over 20 volumes. His writings on natural history and philosophy have be two sources of modern-day environmentalism.Henry David Thoreau (born David Henry Thoreau) was an American author, naturalist, transcendentalist, tax resister, development critic, philosopher, and abolitionist who is best known for Walden, a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings, and his essay, Civil Disobedience, an argument for individual resistance to civil government in moral opposition to an unjust state. About the Author Henry David Thoreau was an American author, poet, abolitionist, naturalist, tax resister, development critic, surveyor, historian, philosopher and leading transcendentalist. Thoreau paints the woods and waterways of Maine with the same loving hand that described his Walden home, and entertains with the successes and difficulties of the trip and the quirks of his companion and their guide, Joseph Polis, told with a wit and insight that can only be found in Thoreau. Book Synopsis Thoreaus famous trip through the Maine Woods reissued to entertain, encourage, and inspire contemporary naturalists. About the Book Thoreaus famous trip through the Maine Woods reissued to entertain, encourage, and inspire contemporary naturalists.
