On the Duty of Civil Disobedience
About this audiobook
Henry David Thoreau’s “Civil Disobedience” is a political treatise against slavery, war, and an argument that individuals not cede excessive power to government.
A masterpiece of American individualism, the essay is considered by many to be one of the most important pieces of political and philosophical writings ever produced by an American.
Thoreau wrote the essay because of his opposition to slavery and the Mexican–American War. When the government engages in actions that are unjust, he believed that citizens should completely withdraw their support of the government and stop paying taxes, even if it results in imprisonment or violence.
People who said they have been influenced by Civil Disobedience include Mahatma Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr., President John F. Kennedy, Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, suffragist Alice Paul, and authors Leo Tolstoy, Marcel Proust, Ernest Hemingway, Upton Sinclair, Sinclair Lewis, and William Butler Yeats.
About the author
Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862), an essayist, poet, philosopher, and anti-slavery activist, was one of the most beloved figures in American literature. He was the author of dozens of books and essays, including On Civil Disobedience, The Maine Woods, and A Week on the Concord and Merrimack Rivers.
Edoardo Ballerini is an American writer, director, film producer and actor. He has won many awards for his audiobook narration; within only a few years after beginning his narrating career, he won several AudioFile Earphones Awards for his work, including Stephen Greenblatt’s The Swerve: How The World Became Modern, Jodi Picoult’s The Storyteller and Jess Walter’s Beautiful Ruins. He narrated Kenzaburo Oe’s Nobel Prize Winning Nip the Buds, Shoot the Kids, Joseph Finder’s The Moscow Club as well as works by John Edward and Daniel Stashower. In television and film, he is best known for his role in The Sopranos, 24, I Shot Andy Warhol, Dinner Rush and Romeo Must Die. The silky-voiced Ballerini is trained in theater and continues to do much work on stage.
