My Thoughts Are Murder To The State: Thoreau's Essays On Political Philosophy

by Henry David Thoreau, David M. Gross (editor)

Thoreau's essays on political philosophy. Includes Civil Disobedience, Slavery in Massachusetts, A Plea for Captain John Brown, The Last Days of John Brown, Remarks After the Hanging of John Brown, Herald of Freedom, Sir Walter Raleigh, Reform and the Reformers, Paradise (to be) Regained, Wendell Phillips Before the Concord Lyceum, The Service, and Life Without Principle

Genres: Politics, Philosophy, Classics, Nonfiction

192 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2007

About the author

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.

Thoreau's books, articles, essays, journals, and poetry total over 20 volumes. 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.

In 1817, Henry David Thoreau was born in Massachusetts. He graduated from Harvard University in 1837, taught briefly, then turned to writing and lecturing. Becoming a Transcendentalist and good friend of Emerson, Thoreau lived the life of simplicity he advocated in his writings. His two-year experience in a hut in Walden, on land owned by Emerson, resulted in the classic, Walden: Life in the Woods (1854). 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 activist convictions were expressed in the groundbreaking On the Duty of Civil Disobedience (1849). In a diary he noted his disapproval of attempts to convert the Algonquins "from their own superstitions to new ones." In a journal he noted dryly that it is appropriate for a church to be the ugliest building in a village, "because it is the one in which human nature stoops to the lowest and is the most disgraced." (Cited by James A. Haught in 2000 Years of Disbelief.) When Parker Pillsbury sought to talk about religion with Thoreau as he was dying from tuberculosis, Thoreau replied: "One world at a time."

Thoreau's philosophy of nonviolent resistance influenced the political thoughts and actions of such later figures as Leo Tolstoy, Mohandas K. Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, Jr. D. 1862.

More: http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/tho...

http://thoreau.eserver.org/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Da...

http://transcendentalism-legacy.tamu....

http://www.biography.com/people/henry...

Reviews

[Tom · Rating 3 out of 5]

Slavery in Massachusetts is one of the best essays I've read. The John Brown stuff is also quality. Civil Disobedience, Reform and the Reformers, and Life Without Principle have some moments of real prescience. Paradise (to be) Regained is fun because of how ridiculous 1840s techno-futurism appears to the modern day. The rest though - yawn. I can imagine it hit home to a thoughtful contemporary American, but to me? Nah. So 3.5 stars but rounded down because I don't want to give people the wrong impression.

[David Gross]

Thoreau’s essays on political philosophy, a more complete collection than most. Includes Civil Disobedience, Slavery in Massachusetts, A Plea for Captain John Brown, The Last Days of John Brown, Remarks After the Hanging of John Brown, Herald of Freedom, Life Without Principle, Sir Walter Raleigh, Reform and the Reformers, Paradise (to be) Regained, Wendell Phillips Before the Concord Lyceum, and The Service.

[Craig Bolton]

My Thoughts Are Murder To The State: Thoreau's Essays On Political Philosophy by Henry David Thoreau (2007)