Civil Disobedience (Penguin Classics 60s S.)

by Henry David Thoreau

In 1848 and again in 1849, Henry David Thoreau delivered a lecture in Concord, Massachusetts on "the relationship of the individual to the state." The essay now known as Civil Disobedience is a significant and widely admired contribution to abolitionist literature, as well as an anti-war tract, but Thoreau's focus is less on political organization and solidarity than it is on personal choice and individual responsibility. Cultivating personal integrity in the face of political injustice is the project Thoreau defends in Civil Disobedience; this focus has made the work highly influential to 20th- and 21st-century political movements.

Robert Pepperman Taylor's new Introduction explains the work's specific political context, helping readers to understand the text as Thoreau wrote it. The edition also offers a number of historical documents on Thoreau's abolitionism; the United States' war with Mexico; and Thoreau's philosophical development in relation to other thinkers.

• ISBN10: 1945644494
• ISBN13: 9781945644498
• Publish Date: 4 April 1849
• Publish Status: Active
• Imprint: Chump Change
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 32
• Language: English

Reviews

[Jeff Sexton]

Wow. To those who think that the rise of the anarchists/ minarchists is a new phenomenon, I present... Civil Disobedience. Wherein you read - nearly 170 years ago - most every argument I have heard any anarchist put forward regarding what is right to do where government is concerned. Relatively short at just 33 pages long, a quick but very good read, particularly the front half.