By virtue of its casual, off-handedly brilliant wisdom and the easy splendor of its nature writing, Thoreau's account of his two year adventure in self-reliance amidst woodland in a cabin he built near Walden Pond near Concord, Massachusetts is one of the signposts by which the modern mind has located itself in an increasingly bewildering world. The work is part personal declaration of independence, social experiment, voyage of spiritual discovery, and manual for self reliance. Thoreau hoped to isolate himself from society to gain a more objective understanding of it. Simple living and self-sufficiency were Thoreau's other goals, and the whole project was inspired by transcendentalist philosophy, a central theme of the American Romantic Period.