Thoreau, Henry David

Introduction

The US American writer and social critic Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862) never studied law nor held those he described as “babbling” lawyers in high esteem. Yet his ideas remain pertinent to legal philosophy.

A complicated political and intellectual figure, Thoreau is now widely viewed as an iconic representative of nineteenth-century US individualism. However, his most famous work, Walden (1992 [1854]), a vivid defense of economic independence in sync with the natural environment, rejected market capitalism’s destructive environmental consequences and also its obsessions with economic growth and wealth accumulation. Although a harsh critic of the state and laws who pointedly advocated avoiding political activity whenever possible, Thoreau was involved in the US anti-slavery movement and publicly defended its most controversial figure. Thoreau’s “Plea for Captain John Brown” (1996 [1860]), published shortly before the author’s death from tuberculosis at age 44, is widely...