On Civil Disobedience
Thoreau's "Civil Disobedience" originated as a Concord Lyceum lecture delivered by Thoreau on January 26, 1848.
While Walden can be applied to almost anyone's life, "Civil Disobedience" is like a venerated architectural landmark: it is preserved and admired, and sometimes visited, but for most of us there are not many occasions when it can actually be used. Still, although it is seldom mentioned without references to Gandhi and King, "Civil Disobedience" has more history than many suspect. In the 1940's it was read by the Danish resistance, in the 1950's it was cherished by people who opposed McCarthyism, in the 1960's it was influential in the struggle against South African apartheid, and in the 1970's it was discovered by a new generation of anti-war activists. The lesson learned from all this experience is that Thoreau's ideas really do work, just as he imagined they would.
THE SPIRIT OF DISOBEDIENCE: An invitation to resistance
Curtis White
Harper's Magazine
April 2006
The Thoreau Problem - When the route to paradise threads through prison
Orion Magazine
The Blog of Henry David Thoreau
Methinks I should hear with indifference if a trustworthy messenger were to inform me that the sun drowned himself last night.
Estimated acres of forest Henry David Thoreau burned down in 1844 trying to cook fish he had caught for dinner: 300
From Literature @ Harpers.org