Through his careful attention to aspects of the indigenous people and their relationship to nature that bear on his current project of composing an Indian Book, Thoreau attempts to make a redemptive history of the alter ego to white people in America, ...

Through his careful attention to aspects of the indigenous people and their relationship to nature that bear on his current project of composing an Indian Book, Thoreau attempts to make a redemptive history of the alter ego to white people in America, as an alternative to the (hi)stories of white European-centered civilization. Because the project of civilization appears too erratic and irresponsible both for man and nature, precipitating toward alienation and disaster, he turns to a deliberate record of the higher laws of nature along with experimental living to form the stable basis for a continuing hope of redemption on Earth. He thus holds up a cause, seemingly lost, before generations of Americans clinging blindly to their so-called national identity at the core of which lies the imperialist ideology.
This paper starts from my growing doubts about the efficacy of savagism in dismissing the Indian Book project either as one abandoned halfway by him or as pure fantasy on the part of most Americans. Developing a critique of savagism, this paper argues that his project derives from his belief in the ecological authenticity of the Indian way of life, and that he remains committed to the universality of human consciousness aspiring to communal welfare on the basis of cultural biodiversity (my extended use of an ecological concept, biodiversity). Restoring his Indian Book out of his corpus including Journal, this study tries to re-evaluate his unfinished project against the backdrop of imperialism in mid-nineteenth century America. In contrast to the other major writers in the most distinguished age of “American Renaissance,” he communicates an unequivocal message against imperialism. This paper may contribute not only to positing his literature at the center of the discourse of nineteenth-century American literature and imperialism, but also to evaluating it in the context of intellectual and politico-economic controversies which have developed since the late twentieth century.