The Social Contract and The Discourses

Introduction by Alan Ryan

Introduction by Alan Ryan
Translated by G. D. H. Cole
Hardcover
$28.00 US
| $37.99 CAN
On sale Oct 26, 1993 | 472 Pages | 9780679423027

 

Two works in one volume

 

Jean-Jacques Rousseau was the first, and the most eloquent and versatile, of that extraordinary line of radical modern thinkers who aimed their disenchantment at the very roots of the human social order and thereby forever reshaped the way we deal with one another. Of Rousseau’s many contributions to the tradition he inaugurated, the one for which he is most revered and that makes these pages glow with conviction is his passionate indignation about anything that trammels individual freedom.

 

This revised edition of G. D. H. Cole’s celebrated translation includes an appendix of sections from the first manuscript draft of The Social Contract and the passage in Rousseau’s novel Émile in which he summarizes its argument, along with Cole’s original preface, which has itself become a classic.

 

Translated by G. D. H. Cole

Revised and augmented by J. H. Brumfitt and John C. Hall

The Social Contract has beguiled generations of readers since its first publication in 1762 . . . In any competition for the best-known line in political literature The Social Contract’s ‘man is born free but
is everywhere in chains’ holds a commanding lead.”
—from the Introduction by Alan Ryan
Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) was the author of numerous political and philosophical texts as well as entries on music for Diderot's Encyclopédie and the novels La nouvelle Héloïse and Émile. Rousseau was also a widely loved composer and philosopher. His philosophy had great influence during the French Enlightenment and throughout all of Europe. View titles by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

About

 

Two works in one volume

 

Jean-Jacques Rousseau was the first, and the most eloquent and versatile, of that extraordinary line of radical modern thinkers who aimed their disenchantment at the very roots of the human social order and thereby forever reshaped the way we deal with one another. Of Rousseau’s many contributions to the tradition he inaugurated, the one for which he is most revered and that makes these pages glow with conviction is his passionate indignation about anything that trammels individual freedom.

 

This revised edition of G. D. H. Cole’s celebrated translation includes an appendix of sections from the first manuscript draft of The Social Contract and the passage in Rousseau’s novel Émile in which he summarizes its argument, along with Cole’s original preface, which has itself become a classic.

 

Translated by G. D. H. Cole

Revised and augmented by J. H. Brumfitt and John C. Hall

Reviews

The Social Contract has beguiled generations of readers since its first publication in 1762 . . . In any competition for the best-known line in political literature The Social Contract’s ‘man is born free but
is everywhere in chains’ holds a commanding lead.”
—from the Introduction by Alan Ryan

Author

Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712–1778) was the author of numerous political and philosophical texts as well as entries on music for Diderot's Encyclopédie and the novels La nouvelle Héloïse and Émile. Rousseau was also a widely loved composer and philosopher. His philosophy had great influence during the French Enlightenment and throughout all of Europe. View titles by Jean-Jacques Rousseau