Unlock the more straightforward side of The Social Contract with this concise and insightful summary and analysis! This engaging summary presents an analysis of The Social Contract by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, a political treatise containing the author’s reflections on the conditions necessary for liberty within civil societies. He emphasises the importance of the collective will and acting in the collective interest, which can be accomplished through a social contract. The Social Contract was considered highly subversive when it was first published and provided inspiration to political revolutionaries throughout Europe. Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a Swiss-born writer, philosopher and political theorist. He was one of the most influential thinkers of the Age of Enlightenment in the 18th century, and his writings play an essential role in modern political and social thought. Find out everything you need to know about The Social Contract in a fraction of the time! This in-depth and informative reading guide brings you: • A complete plot summary • Character studies • Key themes and symbols • Questions for further reflection Why choose BrightSummaries.com? Available in print and digital format, our publications are designed to accompany you in your reading journey. The clear and concise style makes for easy understanding, providing the perfect opportunity to improve your literary knowledge in no time! See the very best of literature in a whole new light with BrightSummaries.com!

Few people can claim to have had minds as fertile and creative as the French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau. One of the most influential political theorists of the modern age, he was also a composer and writer of opera, a novelist, and a memoirist whose Confessions ranks as one of the most striking works of autobiography ever written. Like many creative thinkers, Rousseau was someone whose restless mind could not help questioning accepted orthodoxies and looking at matters from novel and innovative angles. His 1762 treatise The Social Contract does exactly that. Examining the nature and sources of legitimate political power, it crafted a closely reasoned and passionately persuasive argument for democracy at a time when the most widely accepted form of government was absolute monarchy, legitimised by religious beliefs about the divine right of kings and queens to rule. In France, the book was banned by worried Catholic censors; in Rousseau’s native Geneva, it was both banned and burned. But history soon pushed Rousseau’s ideas into the mainstream of political theory, with the French and American revolutions paving the way for democratic government to gain ground across the Western world. Though it was precisely what got Rousseau’s book banned at the time, the novel idea that all legitimate government rests on the will of the people is now recognised as the core principle of democratic freedom and represents, for many people, the highest of ideals.

A milestone of political science, Rousseau's 1762 work argues that all government is fundamentally flawed and that modern society is rife with inequality. He proposes an alternative system for the development of self-governing, self-disciplined citizens.

Rousseau argues for the preservation of individual freedom min political society. An individual can only be free under the law, he says, by voluntarily embracing that law as his own. This text is not only a defence of civil society, but also a study of the darker side of political systems.

* Our summary is short, simple and pragmatic. It allows you to have the essential ideas of a big book in less than 30 minutes. By reading this summary, you will discover what legitimizes political power in a republic. You will also discover : that freedom and equality go hand in hand; how the republic aims at the common good; that the social contract is the act by which a people becomes a people; that the government's only function is to satisfy the people; that popular sovereignty is inalienable, indivisible and limited. In the second half of the 18th century, Europe was still struggling with absolutist regimes. Jean-Jacques Rousseau, philosopher, encyclopedist and friend of Diderot, imagines a society and public institutions where everyone would be free and secure. In 1762, he published The Social Contract or Principles of Political Law: the work instantly became a classic. Both adored and censured, this work formulated the principle of popular sovereignty and served as a model for the draft constitutions of several countries. Will you be able to build a just and legitimate state? *Buy now the summary of this book for the modest price of a cup of coffee!

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.

With the publication of The Social Contract in 1761, Jean-Jacques Rousseau took his place among the leading political philosophers of the Enlightenment. Like his contractarian predecessors (Thomas Hobbes and John Locke), Rousseau sought to ground his political theory in an understanding of human nature, which he believed to be basically good but corrupted by the conflicting inteerests within society. Here self-interest degenerated into a state of war from which humanity could only be extricated by the imposition of a contract. As a party to the compact, each individual would find his true interest served within the political expression of the community of man, or the "general will." What is the content of human nature and how does it compel mankind to come together to create a civil society? What form does this society take? What benefits does it offer its citizens, and what must each individual sacrifice to reap its rewards? How does sovereign power manifest itself, and what consequences follow for those who choose not to abide by the "general will"? Does Rousseau's political theory set forth a blueprint for democracyone that results in equality, universal suffrage, and popular sovereigntyor is it a recipe for central state totalitarianism? These are just a few of the complex questions that will confront readers of The Social Contract. Whatever their intent or iltimate result, Jean-Jacques Rousseau's views on the state and man's relationship to it have culminated in one of the most powerful and compelling pieces of political philosophy ever written.

Censored in its own time, the Social Contract (1762) remains a key source of democratic belief and is one of the classics of political theory. This new translation is fully annotated and indexed. The volume also contains the opening chapter of the manuscript version of the Contract, together with the long article on Political Economy, a work traditionally between the Contract and Rousseau's earlier masterpiece, the Discourse on Inequality.

This comprehensive volume identifies and analyzes the significant ideas and institutions that shaped the Western educational heritage. The author examines how worldwide events have impacted education in Europe, North America, and beyond. The third edition incorporates fresh material about the ancient world, European exploration and colonization of North America and India, as well as updated chapters on education in the United Kingdom, France, Germany, and Russia. This edition has an expanded treatment of Carl Jung, a new section on Margaret Naumburg and her Walden School, and enhanced analysis of many other theorists. It concludes with broadened coverage of nineteenth, twentieth, and twenty-first century American education, including many educators new to the third edition. Each chapter contains a new feature: Reflection, Discussion, and Research. From Plato and Aristotle to John Dewey, leading educators raised perennial concepts about education and truth, meaning, and value that remain relevant today. In the progression from antiquity to the present, some issues are marked by change and others by continuity—all of which are important to consider, discuss, and research further.

In contrast to traditional Enlightenment studies that focus solely on authors and ideas, Gary Kates' employs a literary lens to offer a wholly original history of the period in Europe from 1699 to 1780. Each chapter is a biography of a book which tells the story of the text from its inception through to the revolutionary era, with wider aspects of the Enlightenment era being revealed through the narrative of the book's publication and reception. Here, Kates joins new approaches to book history with more traditional intellectual history by treating authors, publishers, and readers in a balanced fashion throughout. Using a unique database of 18th-century editions representing 5,000 titles, the book looks at the multifaceted significance of bestsellers from the time. It analyses key works by Voltaire, Adam Smith, Madame de Graffigny, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and David Hume and champions the importance of a crucial innovation of the age: the rise of the 'erudite blockbuster', which for the first time in European history, helped to popularize political theory among a large portion of the middling classes. Kates also highlights how, when, and why some of these books were read in the European colonies, as well as incorporating the responses of both ordinary men and women as part of the reception histories that are so integral to the volume.