The Essential Rousseau

Description

With splendid new translations, these four major works offer a superlative introduction to a great social philosopher whose ideas helped spark a revolution that has still not ended.
 
Can individual freedom and social stability be reconciled?
What is the function of government?
What are the benefits and liabilities of civilization?
What is the original nature of man, and how can he most fully realize his potential?
 
These were the questions that Jean-Jacques Rousseau investigated in works that helped set the stage for the French Revolution and have since stood as eloquent expressions of revolutionary views, not only in politics but also in such areas as personal lifestyles and educational practices. Rousseau’s concepts of the natural goodness of man, the corrupting influence of social institutions, and the right and the power of the people to overthrow their oppressors and create new and more responsive forms of government and society are as richly relevant today as they were in eighteenth-century France.

Includes:
The Social Contract
Discourse on Inequality
Discourse on the Arts and Sciences
“The Creed of a Savoyard Priest” (from Emile)The Essential RousseauIntroduction
The Social Contract
Discourse on Inequality
Discourse on the Arts and Sciences
The Creed of a Savoyard Priest

ForewordBook I
I. The Subject of This First Book
II. The First Societies
III. The Right of the Strongest
IV. Slavery
V. We Must Always Go Back to a First Agreement
VI. The Social Pact
VII. The Sovereign
VIII. The Civil State
IX. Real Property

Book II
I. Sovereignty Is Inalienable
II. Sovereignty Is Indivisible
III. Whether the General Will Can Err
IV. Limits of the Sovereign Power
V. The Right of Life and Death
VI. Law
VII. The Lawgiver
VIII. The People
IX. The People (continued)
X. The People (continued)
XI. Various Systems of Law
XII. Classification of Laws

Book III
I. Government in General
II. The Constitutive Principle of the Various Forms of Government
III. Classification of Governments
IV. Democracy
V. Aristocracy
VI. Monarchy
VII. Mixed Governments
VIII. All Forms of Government Do Not Suit All Countries
IX. The Signs of a Good Government
X. The Abuse of Government and Its Tendency to Degenerate
XI. The Death of the Body Politic
XII. How the Sovereign Authority Maintains Itself
XIII. How the Sovereign Authority Maintains Itself (continued)
XIV. How the Sovereign Authority Maintains Itself (continued)
XV. Deputies or Representatives
XVI. The Institution of the Government Is Not a Contract
XVII. The Institution of the Government
XVIII. The Means of Preventing Usurpation of the Government

Book IV
I. The General Will Is Indestructible
II. Voting
III. Elections
IV. The Roman Public Assemblies
V. The Tribunate
VI. Dictatorship
VII. Censorship
VIII. Civil Religion
IX. Conclusion

Notes

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