Walden details Thoreau's experiences over the course of two years two months and two days in
a cabin he built in the woods near Walden Pond Massachusetts. Thoreau compresses the time into
a single calendar year and uses passages of four seasons to symbolize human development. Part
memoir part personal quest the book is a reflection upon simple living in natural
surroundings where Thoreau hoped to gain a more objective understanding of society through
personal introspection. Civil Disobedience or Resistance to Civil Government is an essay by
Thoreau in which he argues that individuals should not permit governments to overrule or
atrophy their consciences and that they have a duty to avoid allowing such acquiescence to
enable the government to make them the agents of injustice. Walking is a transcendental essay
in which 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. Content: Books Walden (Life in the
Woods) Civil Disobedience Walking Biography Thoreau by Ralph Waldo Emerson Henry David Thoreau
(1817-1862) was an American essayist poet philosopher abolitionist naturalist surveyor
and historian. 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.
