Book description
Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have
transformed the way we see ourselves - and each other. They have
inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened,
outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives - and
destroyed them. Now Penguin brings you the works of the great
thinkers, pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook
civilization and helped make us who we are.
Thoreau's account of his solitary and self-sufficient home in the
New England woods remains an inspiration to the environmental movement
- a call to his fellow men to abandon their striving, materialistic
existences of 'quiet desperation' for a simple life within their
means, finding spiritual truth through awareness of the sheer beauty
of their surroundings.
Henry David Thoreau (1817-62) was born in Concord, Massachusetts and
educated at Harvard. He became a follower and a friend of Emerson, and
described himself as a mystic and a transcendentalist. Although he
published only two books in his lifetime, Walden (from which this book
is taken) is regarded as a literary masterpeice and one of the most
significant books of the 19th century.
