Dave Chetcuti, Henry David Thoreau
Civil Disobedience
eBook
( Oct. 13, 2012)
This essay, by Henry David Thoreau, has change the world in profound ways. The ideas presented in this essay have influenced some of the most powerful and influential people in history, including Martin Luther King Jnr, Leo Tolstoy, President John F. Kennedy and Ernest Hemingway. It was a seminal piece of work in the shaping of Gandhi’s three decade-long non-violent revolution against British-occupied India.
In this essay, Thoreau has laid down a powerful template for every revolutionary.
Originally published in 1848, the essay contains old vernacular, incomprehensible metaphors and unusual sentence structure, making it quite difficult to understand for the average person. And thus, this essay has been translated into modern English for you.
The central premise of the essay is that society can overturn corrupt governments, inhumane laws and occupying forces through non-violent civil resistance, manifesting itself as “compassion in the form of mutual disagreement” (Wikipedia).