ThoreauIn 1848, Henry David Thoreau delivered his first draft of his best-known work Civil Disobedience to his publisher. This book was one written during the famous two years (1845-7) he spent living on Walden Pond, during which time he was jailed one night for refusing to pay a poll tax meant to support America's war in Mexico. His essay on this experience was first published as Resistance to Civil Government, but later known as On the Duty of Civil Disobedience, which in its call for passive resistance to unjust laws was to inspire Gandhi and Martin Luther King, Jr. Though his writings did not sell well during his lifetime, he is now recognized for his essays on conservation. His first book of essays was Natural History of Massachusetts (1842). |
