In July 1845, disgusted by the growing commercialism and industrialism of American society, Henry David Thoreau (1817 - 1862) left Conrad, Massachusetts, his hometown, to settle on the edge of Lake Walden. First published in 1854 under the title "Walden or Life in the woods", this is the story of two years, two months and two days in which the author lived apart from the society of men, meeting his own needs, studying, contemplating nature and knowing yourself. In this ethical and spiritual testament that is Walden ("The universe is bigger than the visions we have of it.") Would drink all the great names of American letters and culture, from the transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson to the beat and counterculture authors century, as well as revolutionary figures such as Gandhi and Martin Luther King.