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." As Taylor says in his introduction, "Walden is a central American text for addressing two of the central crises of our time: the increasingly alarming threats we now face to democratic norms, practices, and political institutions, and the perhaps even more alarming environmental dangers confronting us." 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"—and if so, what does it teach?
