The Social Contract and Discourses

Name: The Social Contract and Discourses
Rating: 4 (1 reviews)
Author: Jean-Jacques Rousseau
ISBN: 9780460873574

by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, G.D.H. Cole, P.D. Jimack

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(1 ratings)

362 pages1762Everyman's LibraryISBN 9780460873574

great_books_of_the_western_world Economics Early works to 1800 Social contract Political science Political science, early works to 1800 Political science--early works to 1800 Politicsphilosophy France 320.01

About this book

Inspired by ancient Greek city states, Rousseau searched for a way which states of his day could be equally representative Holding men in wretched subservience, feudalism–alongside religion–was a powerful force in the eighteenth century. Self-serving monarchic social systems, which collectively reduced common people to servitude, were now attacked by Enlightenment philosophers, of whom Rouseau was a leading light. His masterpiece, The Social Contract, profoundly influenced the subsequent development of society and remains provocative in a modern age of continuing widespread vested interest. This is the most comprehensive paperback edition available, with introduction, notes, index and chronology of Rousseau's life and times.

Publication Details

Publisher: Everyman's Library
Published: 1762
Pages: 362
ISBN: 9780460873574
Language: en

About Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a major Genevois philosopher, writer, and composer of 18th-century Romanticism. His political philosophy influenced the French Revolution and the development of modern political, sociological and educational thought. His novel, *Emile: or, On Education*, which he considered his most important work, is a seminal treatise on the education of the whole person for citizenship. His sentimental novel, Julie, ou la nouvelle Héloïse, was of great importance to the development of pre-Romanticism and romanticism in fiction. Rousseau's autobiographical writings: his *Confessions*, which initiated the modern autobiography, and his *Reveries of a Solitary Walker* were among the pre-eminent examples of the late 18th-century movement known as the "Age of Sensibility", featuring an increasing focus on subjectivity and introspection that has characterized the modern age. Rousseau also made important contributions to music as a theorist. During the period of the French Revolution, Rousseau was the most popular of the philosophers among members of the Jacobin Club. He was interred as a national hero in the Panthéon in Paris, in 1794, 16 years after his death.<sup>[1][1]</sup> [1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jean-Jacques_Rousseau