The Essential Writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau

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 poltics but also in such areas as personal life-styles 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.

The four major works selected and given splendid new translations by Lowel Bair offer a superlative introduction to a passionate thinker and brilliant writer whose ideas have helped shake and shape the world.