Widely regarded as the first modern autobiography, The Confessions is an astonishing work of acute psychological insight. Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-78) argued passionately against the inequality he believed to be intrinsic to civilized society. In his Confessions he relives the first fifty-three years of his radical life with vivid immediacy - from his earliest years, where we can see the source of his belief in the innocence of childhood, through the development of his philosophical and political ideas, his struggle against the French authorities and exile from France following the...

Ten meditations written in the two years before Rousseau's death in 1778 provide an excellent introduction to the thinker's complex world, expressing in its full force the agony of isolation and alienation

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In A Discourse on Inequality, Rousseau sets out to demonstrate how the growth of civilization corrupts man's natural happiness and freedom by creating artificial inequalities of wealth, power and social privilege. Contending that primitive man was equal to his fellows, Rousseau believed that as societies become more sophisticated, the strongest and most intelligent members of the community gain an unnatural advantage over their weaker brethren, and that constitutions set up to rectify these imbalances through peace and justice in fact do nothing but perpetuate them. Rousseau's...

A lively new translation of Rousseau's best-known work, accompanied by additional political writings
"Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains" are the famous opening words of Jean-Jacques Rousseau'sSocial Contract, a work of political philosophy that has stirred vigorous debate ever since its publication in 1762. Rejecting the view that anyone has a natural right to sovereignty, Rousseau argues instead for a pact a "social contract" that should exist among all the citizens of a state and that should be the source of governing power. From this premise, he goes on to...

Rousseau's last great work, Reveries of the Solitary Walker is part reminiscence, part meditation, as the philosopher tries to come to terms with his isolation and to find happiness in solitude and nature. The Reveries are an important complement to Rousseau's other philosophical and autobiographical works and address many of the same issues, making it a useful introduction for anyone interested in reading Rousseau for the first time. Russell Goulbourne offers a fresh new translation that marries accuracy with readability. In addition, his Introduction discusses the nature of the work and...

Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Der Gesellschaftsvertrag. Die Grundsatze des Staatsrechtes Entstanden 1754, uberarbeitete Fassung 1758. Erstdruck: Amsterdam (Rey) 1762. Erste deutsche Ubersetzung (anonym) unter dem Titel Gedanken von dem gesellschaftlichen Leben der Menschen oder Staatsrecht, Marburg 1763. Der Text folgt der Ubersetzung durch Hermann Denhardt von 1880. Vollstandige Neuausgabe mit einer Biographie des Autors. Herausgegeben von Karl-Maria Guth. Berlin 2015. Textgrundlage ist die Ausgabe: ean-Jacques Rousseau: Der Gesellschaftsvertrag oder Die Grundsatze des Staatsrechtes. Deutsch von...

Narcissus, or The Lover of Himself is a play of staggering mediocrity. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, better known as a social thinker than as a playwright, claims to have written it as a young man of eighteen, some twenty years before it was performed for King Louis XV on December 18, 1752. It flopped and never saw the stage again in Rousseau's lifetime. In his preface to the play, penned after its failed production, Rousseau avows that he kept himself from publishing it for as long as he held onto some regard for his reputation as an author. This is a fairly measured judgment, for a work the...