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.

    The landmark political treatise that refuted the so-called divine right of kings and established the principles of representative government
     
    "Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains."
     
    With these stirring words, Jean-Jacques Rousseau begins The Social Contract—the first shot in a battle of ideas that would set the stage for the American War of Independence and the French Revolution. In the feverish days of the Enlightenment, Rousseau took aim squarely at the all-powerful French monarchy, proclaiming that no despot, no matter how powerful, had the right to terrorize his people. He laid out a plan for a new kind of government—an idea that was radical then, and remains so now.
     
    The Social Contract is a landmark document from a fascinating period in world history and an invaluable guide to the foundations of modern democracy.
     
    This ebook has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices.
     

    A fascinating examination of the relationship between civilization and inequality from one of history’s greatest minds
     
    The first man to erect a fence around a piece of land and declare it his own founded civil society—and doomed mankind to millennia of war and famine. The dawn of modern civilization, argues Jean-Jacques Rousseau in this essential treatise on human nature, was also the beginning of inequality.
     
    One of the great thinkers of the Enlightenment, Rousseau based his work in compassion for his fellow man. The great crime of despotism, he believed, was the raising of the cruel above the weak. In this landmark text, he spells out the antidote for man’s ills: a compassionate revolution to pull up the fences and restore the balance of mankind.
     
    This ebook has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices.
     

    Books on Rousseau

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      Houghton Mifflin Harcourt / 2007 / Hardcover
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    3. Rousseau: A Very Short Introduction
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      Oxford University Press / 2001 / Trade Paperback
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