Civil Disobedience has become one of the most widely read and influential works ever written.  

Sparked by Thoreau’s outrage at the mass slavery in America that ensued with the industrial era, Civil Disobedience is one of the greatest philosophic texts of all time: a call to every citizen to value his conscience above his government.

Within this 19th century essay, Thoreau’s message was that people had a moral duty to avoid blind acquiescence to governmental edicts that in effect made them agents of injustice.

"I became convinced that noncooperation with evil is as much a moral obligation as is cooperation with good. No other person has been more eloquent and passionate in getting this idea across than Henry David Thoreau. As a result of his writings and personal witness, we are the heirs of a legacy of creative protest.”
–Martin Luther King

“Thoreau was a great writer, philosopher, poet, and withal a most practical man, that is, he taught nothing he was not prepared to practice in himself. He went to gaol for the sake of his principles and suffering humanity. His essay has therefore, been sanctified by suffering. Moreover, it is written for all time. Its incisive logic is unanswerable.”

–Mahatma Gandhi

PHILIP DOSSICK is the New York Times critically acclaimed writer and director of the motion picture The P.O.W. He has written for television, including the outstanding drama, Transplant, produced by David Susskind for CBS. His most recent books include Aztecs: Epoch Of Social Revolution, Sex And Dreams, Mark Twain In Seattle, Oscar Wilde: Sodomy and Heresy, The Naked Citizen: Notes On Privacy In The Twenty-First Century, Raymond Chowder And Bob Skloot Must Die, The Deposition, Vincent Van Gogh: Madness and Magic, Lenny Bruce: The Myth of Free Speech, and Ghost Dance Prophets: From Martin Luther King to Mahatma Gandhi.