[PDF] Walden Today eBook

Author : Wayne Thomas
Publisher : Wayne M. Thomas
Page : 177 pages
File Size : 38,18 MB
Release : 2012-01-02
Category :
ISBN : 9780985014704

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Walden Today is about creating personal freedom and making a living in a time where there is less job security, fewer jobs, less trust in government and corporations--and more need to rely on yourself to survive. It is a survival manual for avoiding a life of what Thoreau called "quiet desperation" in depressing economic times. Historically the American Dream was a given that every person who worked hard, who was ethical, financially prudent and self-reliant could achieve a life of relative comfort and security while leaving a modest legacy to their children. Today American Dream has become shattered and most Americans believe that it is now out of reach. 1. In our jobs: dissatisfaction, discouragement, insecurity 2. In our personal lives: a quiet desperation that we cannot improve our situation Walden Today provides an answer to: How To Change What You Do Into What You'd Rather Be Doing. - The solution is to live more deliberately to gain more autonomy (freedom and independence). - We can live deliberately by applying Thoreau's seven principles of living and working: 1. Be true to yourself 2. Network to grow and survive 3. Life is short, so enjoy it by living simply to stay free 4. Become Self Reliant: Do it yourself 5. Adapt to changes in life by continually learning and trying new ideas 6. Take advantage of the conveniences and opportunities of the age 7. Work deliberately Interestingly, there are striking parallels to America 150 years ago. They were worried about an environmental warming crisis. They were worried about ever growing, big spending national government. They were living through a huge real estate bubble that popped and took half the banks with it because of "sub prime loans." There was credit deflation and few jobs. Overnight America was in a depression called the Panic of 1837. Most importantly, Thoreau dealt with the number one question all of us still ask today: How can I make a living and still have the freedom to do what I'd really like to do?

Author : Richard B. Primack
Publisher : University of Chicago Press
Page : 266 pages
File Size : 28,78 MB
Release : 2014-04-01
Category : Nature
ISBN : 022606221X

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“An unnervingly close-to-home perspective [on] the dynamics and impact of climate change on plants, birds, and myriad other species, including us.”—Booklist In his meticulous notes on the natural history of Concord, Massachusetts, Henry David Thoreau records the first open flowers of highbush blueberry on May 11, 1853. If he were to look for the first blueberry flowers in Concord today, mid-May would be too late. Warming temperatures have pushed blueberry flowering three weeks earlier, and in 2012, following a period of record-breaking warmth, blueberries began flowering on April 1—six weeks earlier than in Thoreau’s time. In Walden Warming, Richard B. Primack uses Thoreau and Walden, icons of the conservation movement, to track the effects of a warming climate on Concord’s plants and animals, with the notes that Thoreau made years ago transformed from charming observations into scientific data sets. Primack finds that many wildflower species that Thoreau observed, including familiar groups such as irises, asters, and lilies, have declined in abundance or disappeared from Concord. Primack also describes how warming temperatures have altered other aspects of Thoreau’s Concord, from the dates when ice departs from Walden Pond in late winter, to the arrival of birds in the spring, to the populations of fish, salamanders, and butterflies that live in the woodlands, river meadows, and ponds. Demonstrating the effects of climate change in a unique, concrete way using this historical and literary landmark as a touchstone, Richard Primack urges us to heed the advice Thoreau offers in Walden: to live simply and wisely. In the process, we can minimize our own contributions to our warming climate.

Author : Robert M. Thorson
Publisher : Harvard University Press
Page : 409 pages
File Size : 37,95 MB
Release : 2014-01-06
Category : Literary Criticism
ISBN : 0674728416

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"Let us settle ourselves, and work and wedge our feet downward," Thoreau invites his readers in Walden, "till we come to a hard bottom and rocks in place, which we can call reality." Walden's Shore explores Thoreau's understanding of that hard reality, not as metaphor but as physical science. Robert M. Thorson is interested in Thoreau the rock and mineral collector, interpreter of landscapes, and field scientist whose compass and measuring stick were as important to him as his plant press. At Walden's climax, Thoreau asks us to imagine a "living earth" upon which all animal and plant life is parasitic. This book examines Thoreau's understanding of the geodynamics of that living earth, and how his understanding informed the writing of Walden. The story unfolds against the ferment of natural science in the nineteenth century, as Natural Theology gave way to modern secular science. That era saw one of the great blunders in the history of American science--the rejection of glacial theory. Thorson demonstrates just how close Thoreau came to discovering a "theory of everything" that could have explained most of the landscape he saw from the doorway of his cabin at Walden. At pivotal moments in his career, Thoreau encountered the work of the geologist Charles Lyell and that of his protégé Charles Darwin. Thorson concludes that the inevitable path of Thoreau's thought was descendental, not transcendental, as he worked his way downward through the complexity of life to its inorganic origin, the living rock.

Author : Lesa Cline-Ransome
Publisher : Holiday House
Page : 43 pages
File Size : 50,31 MB
Release : 2022-11-15
Category : Juvenile Nonfiction
ISBN : 0823448584

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From the award-winning author of Before She Was Harriet comes another work of lyrical beauty, the story of Henry David Thoreau and businessman Frederic Tudor—and a changing world. Thoreau and Tudor could not have been more different from each other. Yet both shared the bounties of Walden Pond and would change the course of history through their writings and innovations. This study in opposites contrasts the austere philosopher with the consummate capitalist (whose innovations would change commercial ice harvesting and home refrigerators) to show how two seemingly conflicting American legacies could be built side by side. Oddball/ tax dodger/ nature lover/ dreamer/ That’s what they called/ Thoreau. Bankrupt/ disgrace/ good for nothing/ dreamer/ That’s what they called/ Tudor. Celebrated author Lesa Cline-Ransome takes her magnificent talent for research and detail to plumb the depths of these two history-makers. The graceful text is paired with Ashley Benham-Yazdani’s period accurate watercolor and pencil artwork. In winter, readers see Tudor’s men sawing through the ice, the workhorses dragging the ice, and Thoreau observing it all; in spring, summer, and fall, the ice continues its journey across the globe with Thoreau and Tudor writing and reflecting in their respective diaries. An Author’s Note, which explores how Thoreau’s writings influenced such figures as Martin Luther King Jr., Robert Frost, and Mohandas Gandhi, is included.

Author : Henry David Thoreau
Publisher : Applewood Books
Page : 49 pages
File Size : 11,6 MB
Release : 1992
Category : Nature
ISBN : 1557091307

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A meditation on apples begins with a short history of the apple tree, tracing its path from ancient Greece to America. Thoreau saw the apple as a perfect mirror of man and eloquently lamented where they both were heading.

Author : Henry David Thoreau
Publisher :
Page : 298 pages
File Size : 44,35 MB
Release : 1980
Category : American essays
ISBN :

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On the Duty of Civil Disobedience: This is Thoreau's classic protest against government's interference with individual liberty. One of the most famous essays ever written, it came to the attention of Gandhi and formed the basis for his passive resistance movement.

Author : Michael T. Dolan
Publisher : Conversari House
Page : 137 pages
File Size : 40,39 MB
Release : 2006
Category : College stories
ISBN : 0977937909

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WALDEN tells the tragic and poignant story of Walden XVI, a student at University struggling to find his identity. Live just one day through Walden's eyes and you'll discover an unforgettable tale of freedom and revolution that is both hilarious and tragic. This tightly-woven narrative is a journey of discovery that will stop you in your tracks.

Author : Henry David Thoreau
Publisher : Modern Library
Page : 799 pages
File Size : 36,10 MB
Release : 2000-11-01
Category : Fiction
ISBN : 0679642021

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Henry David Thoreau's vision of personal freedom is indelibly etched on the American consciousness. 'We need the tonic of wildness,' Thoreau wrote in Walden, and by turning his back on town amenities to build a house on Walden Pond in 1845, he helped shape our notions of the individual, subsistence, and a moral relation to nature. Raising white beans and potatoes that he sold to his Concord neighbors, he stayed for two years; his book records both the philosophy he developed while living alone and the facts of his everyday life. Included here with the complete text of Walden are selections from Thoreau's first book, A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers; 'A Plea for Captain John Brown,' his eloquent defense of the American abolitionist's rebellion at Harper's Ferry, and such masterpieces as his famous essay 'Civil Disobedience,' in which he describes a night spent in prison for refusing to pay a poll tax to a government that condoned slavery.

Author : Bob Pepperman Taylor
Publisher : University of Notre Dame Pess
Page : 279 pages
File Size : 23,74 MB
Release : 2020-03-30
Category : Political Science
ISBN : 0268107351

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Throughout this original and passionate book, Bob Pepperman Taylor presents a wide-ranging inquiry into the nature and implications of Henry David Thoreau’s thought in Walden and Civil Disobedience. Taylor pursues this inquiry in three chapters, each focusing on a single theme: chapter 1 examines simplicity and the ethics of “voluntary poverty,” chapter 2 looks at civil disobedience and the role of “conscience” in democratic politics, and chapter 3 concentrates on what “nature” means to us today and whether we can truly “learn from nature.” Taylor considers Thoreau’s philosophy, and the philosophical problems he raises, from the perspective of a wide range of thinkers and commentators drawn from history, philosophy, the social sciences, and popular media, breathing new life into Walden and asking how it is alive for us today. In Lessons from Walden, Taylor allows all sides to have their say, even as he persistently steers the discussion back to a nuanced reading of Thoreau’s actual position. With its tone of friendly urgency, this interdisciplinary tour de force will interest students and scholars of American literature, environmental ethics, and political theory, as well as environmental activists, concerned citizens, and anyone troubled with the future of democracy.