Summary of Walden; or Life in the Woods by Henry Thoreau

Henry David Thoreau may have escaped to the wilderness to write Walden; or Life in the Woods nearly two centuries ago, but it wouldn’t be hard to imagine his book sitting on a bestseller list next to Eat, Pray, Love or Under the Tuscan Sun. Writing during the early Industrial Revolution, just when the railroad had reached his hometown, he struggles with the purpose of life, the ever-quickening pace of work, the futility of materialism and the neglect of appreciating the beauty in the natural world. As canny today as it was in antebellum America, Thoreau’s book shows how far people have come and how little the human condition has changed over the decades.

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