Rousseau's political writing

Each piece is fully annotated. Backgrounds includes a sketch of Rousseau’s life, selections from his Confessions, and comments on Rousseau’s work and character from such illustrious contemporaries and early critics as Voltaire, Hume, Boswell and Johnson, Paine, Kant, and Proudhon. Commentaries includes assessments of Rousseau’s political thought by a wide variety of scholars and critics including Judith Shklar, Robert Nisbet, Simone Weil, and Benjamin R. Barber.

The notes and commentaries in this edition focus on Rousseau's atti tudes toward democracy. In what sense does he espouse democracy? What sort does he prefer? Ho does he account for the weakness of democratic institutions in political experience up to his time? What, in his view, are the preconditions, prospects, and procedures for establish ing a legitimate democratic state? How satisfactory is his project? These questions assume that Rousseau is a kind of democrat, an assumption not shared by most students of his political thought. For the burning question in Rousseau studies, from the start, has not been what kind of democrat he is but whether he is sufficiently committed to liberty and equality to qualify as a democrat at all.' Debate on this issue has most recently taken the form of a controversy over whether Rousseau is a totalitarian. But with the thaw in the Cold War and renewed interna tional interest in democracy the time is ripe to focus attention on the democratic aspects of Rousseau's political thought.