Thoreau's Religion

Thoreau''s Religion presents a ground-breaking interpretation of Henry David Thoreau''s most famous book Walden. Rather than treating Walden Woods as a lonely wilderness Balthrop-Lewis demonstrates that Thoreau''s ascetic life was a form of religious practice dedicated to cultivating a just multispecies community. The book makes an important contribution to scholarship in religious studies political theory English environmental studies and critical theory by offering the first sustained reading of Thoreau''s religiously motivated politics. In Balthrop-Lewis''s vision practices of renunciation like Thoreau''s can contribute to the reformation of social and political life. In this the book transforms Thoreau''s image making him a vital source for a world beset by inequality and climate change. Balthrop-Lewis argues for an environmental politics in which ecological flourishing is impossible without economic and social justice.