The Social Contract and Discourses

Translation and introduction by G. D. H. Cole. Revised and augmented by J. H. Brumfitt and John C. Hall

The Social Contract is politically the most significant of all Rousseau’s writings. This is the only English translation to couple it with part of the first manuscript draft and with the three important Discourses – On the Arts and Sciences, On the Origin of Inequality and On Political Economy.

Rousseau’s works possess a double importance. Not only do they give an insight into eighteenth-century thought, but they have a profound influence on the subsequent development of society. No writer of the time has made a greater impact. Rousseau may fairly be called the father of the Romantic movement: he was a pioneer of modern educational theory; he is of major importance as a political thinker, and a creator of the modern philosophy of the State.

This edition, by J. H. Brumfitt, Professor of French, and John C. Hall, Senior Lecturer in Moral Philosophy, in the University of St Andrews, contains the classic introduction by G. D. H. Cole, but revises his translation and adds new material based on more recent scholarship.