"In "Resistance to Civil Government" (1849), better known as "Civil Disobedience," Henry David Thoreau writes about the night he spent in jail for refusing to pay taxes that he believed supported slavery and a war of expansion in Mexico. Urging us to act likewise on our own deepest convictions, he articulates individual conscience as a revolutionary force in American politics. No writer has made a more persuasive case for obeying a "higher law" when faced with supporting an act or policy that violates it. Writing more than a century later, in an essay called "Civil Disobedience," Hannah Arendt offers a very different view. For Arendt, disobedience to unjust laws is never the work of the lone individual conscience but rather arises out of the long tradition of voluntary association in America. Noting that dissent and tacit consent exist in constant tension in a democratic society, she argues that only through public and collective action can meaningful political change be brought about. These two seminal essays, presented here with an introduction by acclaimed political thinker Roger Berkowitz, take on new resonance when read together. As we grapple with how to respond to threats to democracy at home and abroad, they have never been more essential." --