Editor’s note: This is the 35th in a series of essays on the history and meaning of the American political tradition. American civilization would be much diminished if Henry David Thoreau (1817-62) had not gone to live “alone, in the woods,” by the shore of Walden Pond, for two years, two months and two days, in a house built by himself, subsisting on simple fare: fish, wild fruits and beans and other vegetables grown in a garden that he planted and tended. He did not go simply to be alone. Thoreau was a w … (read more)
