In 1845 Henry David Thoreau hiked into the Walden Woods and built a small hut, where he lived alone for the next two years. Thoreau wanted to prove that man could live entirely free from society, and his experiment tested the limits of his self-reliance while also immersing him in the lush natural beauty of New England. The writings that resulted from this undertaking - Walden and the essay "Civil Disobedience" - are among the most widely read and influential texts ever written.