Rousseau

A comprehensive and authoritative anthology of Rousseau's major later political writings in up-to-date English translations. This volume includes the essay on Political Economy, The Social Contract, and the extensive, late Considerations on the Government of Poland, as well as the important draft on The Right of War and a selection of his letters on various aspects of his political thought. The Social Contract, Rousseau's most comprehensive political work - he called it a 'small treatise' - was condemned on publication by both the civil and the ecclesiastical authorities in France as well as in Geneva, and warrants for its author's arrest were issued. Rousseau was forced to flee and it is during this period that he wrote some of his autobiographical works. This new edition features an expanded introduction, and an extensive editorial apparatus designed to assist students at every level access these seminal texts.

Jean-Jacques Rousseau (28 June 1712 - 2 July 1778) was a Genevan philosopher, writer and composer. His political philosophy influenced the progress of the Enlightenment throughout Europe, as well as aspects of the French Revolution and the development of modern political, economic and educational thought.
His Discourse on Inequality and The Social Contract are cornerstones in modern political and social thought. Rousseau's sentimental novel Julie, or the New Heloise (1761) was important to the development of preromanticism and romanticism in fiction. His Emile, or On Education (1762) is an educational treatise on the place of the individual in society. Rousseau's autobiographical writings-the posthumously published Confessions (composed in 1769), which initiated the modern autobiography, and the unfinished Reveries of a Solitary Walker (composed 1776-1778)-exemplified the late-18th-century Age of Sensibility, and featured an increased focus on subjectivity and introspection that later characterized modern writing.
Rousseau befriended fellow philosophy writer Denis Diderot in 1742, and would later write about Diderot's romantic troubles in his Confessions. 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.

Preface; Preface to the second edition; Introduction; Chronology of Jean-Jacques Rousseau; A brief guide to further reading; A note on the texts; A note on the translations; A note on the editorial notes and index; Discourse on Political Economy; Of the Social Contract; Book I; Book II; Book III; Book IV; From: Of the Social Contract or essay about the form of the Republic (known as the Geneva Manuscript): Book I, ch. 2 and Book II, ch. 4; Principles of the Right of War; Considerations on the Government of Poland; Selected Letters: Letter to D'Offreville; Letter to Usteri; Letter to Mirabeau; Letter to Franquières; List of abbreviations and textual conventions; Editorial notes; Index of editors, translators, and annotators; General index.