The Political Thought of Henry David Thoreau: Privatism and the Practice of PhilosophyToday, Henry David Thoreau's status as one of America's most influential public intellectuals remains unchallenged. Recent scholarship on Thoreau has highlighted his activism as a committed antislavery reformer and proto environmentalist whose life became a seminal model for the image of the liberal conscience. While modern scholars have firmly established Thoreau's relevance, their focus on his public activism has undervalued the complexity and range