作者  (1817年七月12日～1862年五月6日)

亨利·大衛·梭羅

 散文 prose： 《瓦爾登湖 Walden》 社會學 sociology： 《論公民的不服從 On the Duty of Civil Disobedience》 自然 閱讀亨利·戴維·梭羅 Henry David Thoreau在散文天地的作品!!! 閱讀亨利·戴維·梭羅 Henry David Thoreau在百家争鸣的作品!!!

亨利.戴維.梭羅（Henry David Thoreau，也有譯為亨利.大衛.梭羅，1817-1862），美國作傢、哲學家，著名散文集《瓦爾登湖》和論文《民的不服從權利》（又譯為《消極抵抗》、《民的不服從》）的作者。 梭羅出生於馬薩諸賽州的康科德城，1837年畢業於哈佛大學。 梭羅除了被一些人尊稱為第一個環境保護主義者外，還是一位關註人類生存狀況的有影響的哲學家，他的著名論文《民的不服從權利》影響了托爾斯泰和聖雄甘地。

1845 年 7 月 4 日 梭羅開始了一項為期兩年的試驗，他移居到離家乡康科德城（Concord）不遠，優美的瓦爾登湖畔的次生林裏，嘗試過一種簡單的隱居生活。他於1847年9月 6日離開瓦爾登湖，重新和住在康科德城的他的朋友兼導師拉爾夫·沃爾多·愛默生一傢生活在一起。出版於1854年的散文集《瓦爾登湖》詳細記載了他在瓦爾登湖畔兩年又兩個月的生涯。雖畢業於世界聞名的哈佛大學，但他沒有選擇經商發財或者從政成為明星，而是平靜地選擇了瓦爾登湖，選擇了心靈的自由和閑適。他搭起木屋，開荒種地，寫作看書，過着非常簡樸、原始的生活。

Henry David Thoreau (born David Henry Thoreau; July 12, 1817 – May 6, 1862) was an American author, poet, abolitionist, naturalist, tax resister, development critic, surveyor, historian, philosopher, and leading transcendentalist. He is best known for his book Walden, a reflection upon simple living in natural surroundings, and his essay, Civil Disobedience, an argument for individual resistance to civil government in moral opposition to an unjust state.

Thoreau's books, articles, essays, journals, and poetry total over 20 volumes. Among his lasting contributions were his writings on natural history and philosophy, where he anticipated the methods and findings of ecology and environmental history, two sources of modern day environmentalism. His literary style interweaves close natural observation, personal experience, pointed rhetoric, symbolic meanings, and historical lore; while displaying a poetic sensibility, philosophical austerity, and "Yankee" love of practical detail. He was also deeply interested in the idea of survival in the face of hostile elements, historical change, and natural decay; at the same time imploring one to abandon waste and illusion in order to discover life's true essential needs.

He was a lifelong abolitionist, delivering lectures that attacked the Fugitive Slave Law while praising the writings of Wendell Phillips and defending abolitionist John Brown. Thoreau's philosophy of civil disobedience influenced the political thoughts and actions of such later figures as Leo Tolstoy, Mahatma Gandhi, and Martin Luther King, Jr.

Thoreau is sometimes cited as an individualist anarchist. Though Civil Disobedience calls for improving rather than abolishing government – "I ask for, not at once no government, but at once a better government" – the direction of this improvement aims at anarchism: "'That government is best which governs not at all;' and when men are prepared for it, that will be the kind of government which they will have."