Introducing Rousseau

Description

I am like no one else in the whole world . . . With these defiant words, Jean-Jacques Rousseau begins his Confessions, an autobiography of incomparable psychological insight. Musician, poet, novelist and botanist, but above all, Rousseau was a philosopher who always denied being one. What is the value of civilisation? Rousseau first posed this question. His answer civilisation corrupts natural goodness and increases inequality between humans shocked his Enlightenment contemporaries and still challenges us today. Did Rousseau inspire the French Revolution? Can we trace Romanticism, psychoanalysis and Existentialism back to him? Introducing Rousseau presents a maverick thinker whose ideas revolutionised our understanding of childhood, education, government, language and much else. It charts Rousseau's turbulent life of lost innocence, persecution and paranoia. Dave Robinison's clear and concise account of Rousseau's ideas is engagingly dramatised by Oscar Zarate's illustrations.

Dave Robinson has taught philosophy for many years and has written Introducing guides to ethics, Rousseau, Kierkegaard, political philosophy and many others. He is now a lecturer in Critical Studies and lives in Devon. Oscar Zarate is one of the UK's leading graphic artists who has illustrated many Introducing titles. His graphic novel A Small Killing won the Will Eisner Prize.