Thoreau and the Sociological Imagination: The Wilds of Society is the first in-depth sociological examination of the ideas of Henry David Thoreau. Through explorations of Thoreau's intellectual links to early social thinkers, as well as the mainstay Thoreauvian concerns for the individual-society relationship, social change, and deconstructing society's idea of progress, Bingham illustrates the sophistication of Thoreau's sociological imagination challenging readers to re-examine the disciplinary boundaries between the social sciences and the humanities.