A rediscovery of Thoreau’s interactions with everyday objects and how they shaped his thought.
 
Though we may associate Henry David Thoreau with ascetic renunciation, Thoreau accumulated a variety of tools, art, and natural specimens throughout his life as a homebuilder, surveyor, and collector. In some of these objects, particularly Indigenous artifacts, Thoreau perceived the presence of their original makers, and he called such objects “mindprints.” Thoreau believed that these collections could teach him how his experience, his world, fit into the wider, more diverse (even incoherent) assemblage of other worlds created and recreated by other beings every day. In this book, Gaskell explores how a profound environmental aesthetics developed from this insight and shaped Thoreau’s broader thought.

Ivan Gaskell is professor of cultural history and museum studies at the Bard Graduate Center. He is the author or editor of several books, most recently Paintings and the Past: Philosophy, History, Art.

List of Illustrations
Preface

Chapter One: Worlds
Chapter Two: Migrants
Chapter Three: Buildings
Chapter Four: Shelter
Chapter Five: Artistry
Chapter Six: Collections
Chapter Seven: Sounds
Chapter Eight: Conclusion

Acknowledgments
Notes
Index