Jean-Jacques Rousseau stands in the middle of the eighteenth-century shift from the Enlightenment to Romanticism in the eighteenth century. His The Social Contract and A Discourse upon the Origin and Foundation of the Inequality among Mankind had a major influence on the leaders of the French Revolution. He was a friend of Enlightenment thinkers like Diderot, and a contributor to the great Enlightenment project, Encyclopedie. Yet Rousseau’s work is often at odds with the strict scientific rationalism of many Enlightenment thinkers. Rousseau encourages emotional expression and emphasizes the importance of freedom in educational development.
The Jean-Jacques Rousseau Collection brings together Rousseau’s most important works. This collection links to the other books in your digital library, allowing you to cross-reference with a click. Near-instant searches allow you to jump to important sections in Rousseau’s work.
