Tours of Thoreau Farm, the birthplace of Henry David Thoreau
09.7.2023
Cost: $10
New tour! Be one of the first to explore Concord’s 1915 armory. Call 978.318. 3061 or email visitors@concordma.gov to book.
Cost: $10
“Our inventions are wont to be pretty toys, which distract our attention from serious things,” Henry David Thoreau wrote in Walden (1854), offering a warning about technology and distraction that resonates in our own time. In conversation with Daegan Miller, Caleb Smith will discuss his new book Thoreau’s Axe: Distraction and Discipline in American Culture, exploring how nineteenth-century Americans understood the problem of distraction, as well as the ways they tried to rehabilitate their powers of attention.