His masterpiece "Walden", published in 1854, is an exemplary work for New England Transcendentalism, one of America's most important intellectual movements. We can say that the ideas about the environment in the work are the most important lines of modern environmentalism and environmental protection.
He was born in Concord, Massachusetts, in 1817. He graduated from Harvard University and started teaching at a public high school. He resigned soon after because he refused to inflict corporal punishment on students. He started working in his family's pencil factory.
He began teaching the nephews of Ralph Waldo Emerson, one of the important representatives of American "transcendentalism". In 1845, he built himself a shack on Emerson's land near Walden Lake and began living there.
Based on this experience, he wrote Walden, or Life in the Woods, which was published in 1854 and is a philosophical text about walking.
Henry David Thoreau (July 12, 1817 – May 6, 1862) was an American naturalist, essayist, poet, and philosopher. A leading transcendentalist, he is best known for his book Walden, a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings, and his essay "Civil Disobedience" (originally published as "Resistance to Civil Government"), an argument in favor of citizen disobedience against an unjust state.
He protested the Mexican-American War and the non-abolition of slavery and was arrested in his barracks and imprisoned for not paying taxes.
Following this experience, he wrote the book Civil Disobedience, which deeply influenced many leaders from Gandhi to Martin Luther King, and introduced the concept of the same name to political literature. His diaries, which he kept uninterruptedly between 1837 and 1861, were published in 16 volumes after his death. The writer, a thinker, scientist, and nature traveler, died in Concord in 1862.
Important details from the life of Henry David Thoreau
He was born on July 12, 1817, in Concord, Massachusetts, and died on May 6, 1862. He completed his undergraduate education at Harvard University in 1837. Henry David Thoreau published only two books during his lifetime, and his other works were published after his death.