jail that led to his celebrated essay Civil Disobedience , which would inspire the likes of Gandhi and Martin Luther King; developed a scientific/poetic response to nature; and aligned himself with the Transcendentalism , which questioned assumptions about God, citizenship, and the Industrial Revolution. Sims relates intimate moments in Thoreau's daily life--teaching Nathaniel Hawthorne to row a boat; tutoring Emerson's nephew on Staten Island--and the deep influence of his parents and his beloved older brother, John, whose tragic early death haunted him. Chronicling Thoreau's youthful transformation, Sims shows how his intellectual development would resonate for the rest of his life, and throughout American literature and history.