Commentary

• Rousseau and the French Revolution 1762-1791 by Joan McDonald

  - Joan McDonald, Rousseau and the French Revolution, 1762-1791. (London: University of London, The Athlone Press, 1965).
  From the publisher: From 1789 onwards there sprang up a fervent revolutionary cult of Rousseau, and at each stage in the subsequent unfolding of the drama of the Revolution historians have seen Rousseau’s influence at work. Mrs McDonald seeks in this study… More

• Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 1712-1778

  - Jean Guehenno, Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 1712-1778 (2 volumes), Translated by John and Doreen Weightman (New York: Columbia UniversityPress, 1966).
  From the publisher: Jean-Jacques Rousseau was the first modern man. This tremendous two-volume biography, written in 1962 by French Academician Jean Guehenno and now translated into English for the first time, succeeds expertly in establishing… More

• Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Transparency and Obstruction

  - Jean Starobinski, Jean-Jacques Rousseau: Transparency and Obstruction, trans. by Arthur Goldhammer (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1988).
  From the publisher: Jean Starobinski, one of Europe’s foremost literary critics, examines the life that led Rousseau, who so passionately sought open, transparent communication with others, to accept and even foster obstacles that permitted him to… More

• The Question of Jean-Jacques Rousseau

  - Ernst Cassirer, The Question of Jean-Jacques Rousseau; edited by Peter Gay (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1989).
  Excerpt: I shall speak of the question of Jean-Jacques Rousseau.  Yet the very formulation of this topic implies a certain assumption—the assumption that Rousseau’s personality and world of ideas have not been reduced to a mere historical fact that… More

• Jean-Jacques: The Early Life and Work of Jean-Jacques Rousseau

  - Maurice Cranston, Jean-Jacques: The Early Life and Work of Jean-Jacques Rousseau,  (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991).
  From the publisher: This is the first volume in Maurice Cranston’s three volume biography of  Jean-Jacques Rousseau, which covers the period from 1712-1754.

• A Rousseau Dictionary

  - N.J.H. Dent, A Rousseau Dictionary (Oxford: Blackwell, 1992).
  From the publisher: The social, educational and political writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau have become enormously influential in the 200 years since his death. But the breadth as well as the depth of Rousseau’s achievement – he was amongst other… More

• Rousseau

  - Robert Wokler, Rousseau (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1995).
  From the publisher: In this compact, thought-provoking study of Rousseau’s life and works Robert Wokler shows how his philosophy of history, his theories of music and politics, his fiction, educational and religious writings, and even his botany, were… More

• The Noble Savage: Jean-Jacques Rousseau

  - Maurice Cranston, The Noble Savage: Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 1754-1762 (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999).
  From the publisher: This is the second volume in Maurice Cranston’s three-volume biography of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, which covers the period from 1754 to 1762.

• The Solitary Self: Jean-Jacques Rousseau in Exile and Adversity by Maurice Cranston

  - Maurice Cranston, The Solitary Self: Jean-Jacques Rousseau in Exile and Adversity (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999).
  This is the third volume in Maurice Cranston’s three-volume biography of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, which covers the period from 1762 to 1778.

• Rousseau: A Very Short Introduction

  - Robert Wokler, Rousseau: A Very Short Introduction (Oxford University Press, 2001).
  From the publisher: In this study of Rousseau’s life and works, Robert Wolker shows how his philosophy of history, his theories of music and politics, his fiction, educational, and religious writings, and even his botany, were all inspired by… More

• Frail Happiness: An Essay on Rousseau

  - Tzvetan Todorov, Frail Happiness: An Essay on Rousseau, Translated by John T. Scott and Robert D. Zaretsky (University Park, PA: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2005).
  From the publisher: “We are all confronted, at one time or another, with choices as to what sort of life we will lead.” So Tzvetan Todorov begins Frail Happiness, an important interpretation of Rousseau, one suffused with Todorov’s own moral… More