The Social Contract (Classics of World Literature) - Softcover

Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1853267813 ISBN 13: 9781853267819

Publisher: Wordsworth Editions Ltd, 1998

Synopsis

In The Social Contract Rousseau (1712-1778) argues for the preservation of individual freedom in political society. An individual can only be free under the law, he says, by voluntarily embracing that law as his own. Hence, being free in society requires each of us to subjugate our desires to the interests of all, the general will. Some have seen in this the promise of a free and equal relationship between society and the individual, while others have seen it as nothing less than a blueprint for totalitarianism. The Social Contract is not only one of the great defences of civil society, it is also unflinching in its study of the darker side of political systems.

About this title

From the Publisher:

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From the Back Cover:

Holding men in wretched subservience, feudalism --- alongside religion --- was a powerful force in the eighteenth century. Self-serving monarchic social systems, which collectively reduced common people to servitude, were now attacked by Enlightenment philosophers, of whom Rousseau was a leading light. His masterpiece, The Social Contract, profoundly influenced the subsequent development of society and remains provocative in a modern age of continuing widespread vested interest.

About this edition

• Publisher: Wordsworth Editions Ltd
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 1853267813
• ISBN 13: 9781853267819
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 160
• Editor: Tom Griffith