Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Discourse on the Origin and Basis of Inequality Among Men (Discours sur l'origine et les fondements de l'in galit parmi les hommes) by philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau discusses two types of inequality, natural or physical and moral or political.Rousseau's focus is given more to moral inequality than of the natural inequality, the natural being that which involves differences between one man's strength or intelligence and that of another as a product of nature. He argues that moral inequality is endemic to a civil society and causes differences in power and wealth. Rousseau take a cynical view of civil society, and refers to times before the current state, when man was closer to his natural state, as happier times for man. He sees civil society is a trick perpetrated by the powerful on the weak in order to maintain their power or wealth.Jean-Jacques Rousseau was an 18th-century Genevan philosopher, writer, and. His political philosophy heavily influenced the French Revolution, the American Revolution and the overall development of modern political, sociological and educational thought.

Newly translated by Peter Constantine
Edited and with an Introduction by Leo Damrosch
 
The Essential Writings of Rousseau collects the best and most indispensable work of one of the world’s most influential writers. A towering figure of Enlightenment thought, Jean-Jacques Rousseau was also one of that movement’s most passionate and persuasive critics. His extraordinarily original observations on politics, education, and human nature were provocative in their day and remain resonant more than two hundred years after his death. Rousseau’s 1762 treatise The Social Contract laid intellectual groundwork for both the American and French Revolutions, influencing such figures as Thomas Jefferson. An eloquent writer with profound insight into human psychology, Rousseau also penned one of the most compelling autobiographies ever written—the magisterial Confessions. The entirety of the first three books of that masterpiece along with the complete Social Contract are included in this indispensable volume.

Winner of the L.L. Winship/PEN New England Award for nonfiction! "A Notable Book for 2005,"---New York Times. Rousseau was the quintessential Romantic and his views, for better or worse, have profoundly influenced Western philosophy, politics, literature, education, and child-rearing. 576 pages, softcover. Mariner.