The Social Contract
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First published in 1762, Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s The Social Contract opens with one of political philosophy’s most enduring challenges: how can people live under authority while remaining free? Rousseau argues that legitimate political power cannot rest simply on force, inheritance or the will of a ruler, but must arise from an agreement among citizens, whose collective sovereignty finds expression in the general will. In a series of compact, forceful chapters, he examines law, liberty, equality and the conditions under which a political community can claim the allegiance of its members.
Both a work of philosophical argument and a radical reconsideration of civic life, The Social Contract became a defining text of the Enlightenment and a major influence on the political imagination of the French Revolution. Rousseau’s vision of popular sovereignty continues to provoke debate over democracy, individual freedom and the obligations people owe to one another. Its famous opening declaration remains a fitting introduction to a book whose questions are as unsettling as they are foundational.
From the book
"Man is born free; and everywhere he is in chains."
— Jean-Jacques Rousseau, The Social Contract
On The Social Contract
“Rousseau’s Social Contract remains, after a quarter of a millennium, one of the most controversial texts in the history of political philosophy.”
— Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews