Walden, or Life in the Woods

Henry Thoreau spent two years, two months, and two days in a cabin by Walden Pond, in voluntary isolation from society, engaged in agriculture, fishing, and reading, rejecting the unnecessary inventions of modern civilization. The result of this seclusion was the book "Walden, or Life in the Woods" - 18 essays-observations about building the cabin, ways of managing the household, forest inhabitants, and nature.

The vividness of the descriptions, the sharpness of the satire, and the passionate polemics - all this is part of a personal declaration of independence, a social experiment, a journey of spiritual discoveries, and - to some extent - a guide to self-confidence.

This autobiographical book by Henry Thoreau, in which he recounts an experiment far ahead of its time, became an American classic and influenced a variety of currents in modern thought, from anarcho-capitalism to ecosocialism.