Henry Thoreau spent two years, two months, and two days in a cabin on the shore of Walden Pond, voluntarily isolated from society, engaging in farming, fishing, reading, and rejecting the unnecessary inventions of modern civilization. The result of this seclusion was the book "Walden; or, Life in the Woods" — 18 essays-observations on building the cabin, ways of farming, forest inhabitants, and nature. Vivid descriptions, sharp satire, and passionate polemics — all part of a personal declaration of independence, a social experiment, a journey of spiritual discovery, and — to some extent — a guide to self-confidence. The autobiographical book by Henry Thoreau, where he recounts an experiment far ahead of its time, became an American classic and influenced various modern currents of thought, from anarcho-capitalism to ecosocialism.