""In Wildness is the preservation of the World," wrote Henry David Thoreau in his iconic deathbed essay "Walking." Published posthumously in 1862, "Walking" became a seminal influence in the environmental movement. "Above all," wrote Thoreau, "we cannot afford not to live in the present." He extolled walking as a delightful and necessary idleness, an antidote to the burdens of civilization, a means of immersing ourselves in nature and awakening to the moment. "Walking" is widely recognized as Thoreau's "other" masterpiece, Walden in a more concise form. Each reading of "Walking" offers new epiphanies from a writer and thinker who, two centuries after his birth in 1817, remains a towering figure in American nature writing. In the introduction to this book, Adam Tuchinsky accessibly and engagingly unpacks the essay's nineteenth-century associations and highlights the startling modernity of its sentiments."--Jacket flap.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.