The Political Philosophy of Jean-Jacques Rousseau: The Impossibility of Reason

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Manchester University Press, 2003 - History - 135 pages

This exciting new text presents the first overview of Jean Jacques Rousseau's work from a political science perspective. Was Rousseau--the great theorist of the French Revolution--really a conservative? This original study argues that the he was a constitutionalist much closer to Madison, Montesquieu, and Locke than to revolutionaries. Outlining his profound opposition to Godless materialism and revolutionary change, this book finds parallels between Rousseau and Burke, as well as showing how Rousseau developed the first modern theory of nationalism. The book presents an integrated political analysis of Rousseau's educational, ethical, religious and political writings, and will be essential reading for students of politics, philosophy and the history of ideas.

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Contents

The disenchantment of the world
19
Rousseaus and nationalism
74
The last of the ancients the first of the moderns?
95
in the beginning was song
111
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