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Summary: Obsolete Editions
Review: Teachers and Thoreau fans beware: this anthology contains heavily redacted versions of Thoreau's works and is not a reliable textual source. The version of _A Week_ is missing huge chunks of vital material, though the editor claims that he has included a complete version. Many titles and smaller details are wrong as well. The source editions for this anthology are pre-WWII. Much has changed for the better in the interim, and you cheat yourself by not ordering a more recent anthology--the Library of America one is excellent, textually impeccable.
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Summary: A classic of American literature
Review: The ideas Thoreau puts forward in this collection of writings helped shape this nation. A must read for anyone interested in American Lit.
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Summary: Don't listen to the illiterate juveniles...
Review: They can't appreciate this book due to the fact that they live in a world of pop trash. Im only 19 and I like it, it's one of the best books I've ever read (besides Waterland). No author describes images and scenery as well as Thoreau, at least that I've read, and his dislike for society is well argued. So, if you're one of those MTV-watching, mall loving, stylish-car- driving, conforming, TV junkies, or an educated uppity know-it-all than this book isn't for you.
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Summary: A Change of Perspective
Review: This book did more to change my way of thinking than any thing I learned in high school or college. Thoreau spent two years of his life looking into the importance of staying simple and humble in a society where material wealth and ignorance were the norm. It was important some two-hundred years ago, and it's ten times as important now.
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Summary: Thoreau is the greatest
Review: This book is a great collection of Thoreau's greatest works. He was a genius and a great writer. I recomend this book to anyone with an interest in Thoreau.
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Summary: Review on the story Walden.
Review: This is a book Thoreau wrote after living almost self-sufficiently in the woods for 2 years. He talks about daily living and society as seen through the eyes of a hermit/poet. Many famous quotes are from this book due to the clarity of some of his sentences. But a bit of warning before reading it, he may just convince you to quit your 9-5 american consumerism lifestyle.
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Summary: The soul of "Civil Disobedience"
Review: This is one of the greatest American works of prose ever produced, and to hear "Walden" condemned by those who lack any understaning of it or of reviling "Civil Disobedience" should abhor anyone with a sensitivity of the soul. Thoreau isn't an anarchist, but rather a believer in the human soul - the government that governs least, governs men of expansive thought and sensitivity to life's riches. Because of this, "Civil Disobedience" has inspired Martin Luther King and Mhatma Ghandi, both of whom suffered under immense civil oppression. "Thus the State never intentionally confronts a man's sense, Intellectual or moral, but only his body, his senses. It is not amed with superior wit or honesty, but with superior physical strength. I was not born to be forced. I will breath after my own fashion. Let us see who is the strongest." (Resistance to Civil Government, Thoreau) To bemoan these words is to commit the most horrible sinning against the self. Those who do not understand thier deep calling to the essence of humanities freedom and the expanse of the indivindual soul are the worst of people: they condemn the thing that seeks to raise them up, bring them to life, and they therefore suffer through thier own soul's dying. To fight peacefully against the unjust, sitting in the street or in jail, is not anarchy - it is one of the purest demonstrations of love for the human soul. On should wonder at and hope for those that do not understand this.
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Summary: Relevant, classic work of American philosophy
Review: Thoreau is sometimes classified as a "nature writer", but his reflections extend into economics, politics, health, recreation, aesthetics, moral issues of personal character, fidelity to principle and self discipline, and to the very nature of reality and perception. He was a dominant figure in the Idealist school of philosophy labeled Transcendentalism. Emerson called Thoreau the truest American. This because of his passionate respect for the dignity of the individual. Years before the Emancipation Proclamation or the Civil War, more than a century before the American civil rights movement or the global push for 'human rights', there was Thoreau's Resistance to Civil Government, which is commonly titled Civil Disobedience. (Mahatma Gandhi acknowledged Thoreau's influence on his life as did Martin Luther King, Jr.). Several decades before the environmental movement was born and ecological awareness began to seep into public consciousness, while John Muir was but an infant, there was Walden. On issues of human dignity, moral consistency, environmental responsibility, even diet and health, he was as an unappreciated light in a gray world of small thinking. In his short life, he had rather few readers and was generally thought of as being a nutty malcontent, as has been the case for so many thinkers of antiquity and of today.
"The greater part of what my neighbors call good I believe in my soul to be bad," states Thoreau, who like other great Idealist thinkers insists that Truth and the crowd generally stand in opposition to one another. Solitude being the state in which one can "discern his proper objects," Thoreau's record at Walden Pond is a wonderful account of such discernment. In his opening treatise on economy, Thoreau says that philanthropy is esteemed so highly only because we are so selfish. It is in his less provocative yet careful analysis of objects of nature that Thoreau delights his reader. His account of a battle between an army of red ants and an army of black ants is meticulous and absolutely wonderful. This great work of American writing and philosophy is an invitation to hear the music of "a different drummer."
"Our whole life is startlingly moral. There is never an instant's truce between virtue and vice. Goodness is the only investment that never fails."
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Summary: Long winded Thoreau
Review: Thoreau was an intelligent man but he also was a bit concieted. The first few chapters are the worse, he goes on and on about how much smarter he is than other people. I really enjoyed the chapters where he describes his natural surroundings. Even though he believes his man should listen to his own drummer, he is very critical of city dwellers. I think everyone should read this book once just to know what it is about.
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Summary: POOR EDITING, INCOMPLETE ESSAYS!!!
Review: Though it doesn't even tell you, "A Week on the Merrimack and Concord" is only partially reprinted in this volume, with the "climax," the climbing of the mountain, left out. I think this is unforgiveable, the editor never even mentions that only a selection of the essay is printed, and does not point out what he has left out and what he has included.
The Essential Emerson, edited by the same people, is twice the size, holds quite a bit of stuff, tells what's missing. That was good. This is a waste of money, and its deceptive. I was very... to say the least, upon learning I had bought what amounts to a book of poorly selected quotes.
(walden is complete but thats no consolation.)
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