Books by Maurice Cranston
A Discourse on Inequality (Penguin Classics)
by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Maurice Cranston
In A Discourse on Inequality, Rousseau sets out to demonstrate how the growth of civilization corrupts man’s natural happiness and freedom by creating artificial inequalities of wealth, power and social privilege. Contending that primitive man was equal to his fellows, Rousseau believed that as societies become more sophisticated, the strongest and most intelligent members of the community gain an unnatural advantage over their weaker brethren, and that constitutions set up to rectify these imbalances through peace and justice in fact do nothing but perpetuate them. Rousseau’s political and social arguments in the Discourse were a hugely influential denunciation of the social conditions of his time and one of the most revolutionary documents of the eighteenth-century.
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The Noble Savage: Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 1754-1762
In this second volume of the unparalleled exposition of Rousseau's life and works, Cranston completes and corrects the story told in Rousseau's Confessions, and offers a vivid, entirely new history of his most eventful and productive years.
"Luckily for us, Maurice Cranston's The Noble Savage: Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 1754-1762 has managed to craft a highly detailed account of eight key years of Rousseau's life in such a way that we can both understand and even, on occasion, sympathize."—Olivier Bernier, Wall Street Journal
Maurice Cranston (1920-1993), a distinguished scholar and recipient of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for his biography of John Locke, was professor of political science at the London School of Economics. His numerous books include The Romantic Movement and Philosophers and Pamphleteers, and translations of Rousseau's The Social Contract and Discourse on the Origins of Inequality.
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Jean-Jacques: The Early Life and Work of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, 1712-1754
In the first volume of his trilogy, noted political philosopher Maurice Cranston draws from original manuscript sources to trace Rousseau's life from his birth in provincial obscurity in Geneva, through his youthful wanderings, to his return to Geneva in 1754 as a celebrated writer and composer.
"[An] admirable biography which is as meticulous, calm, reasonable, and judicious as its subject is passionate and tumultuous."—Keith Michael Baker, Washington Post Book World
"The definitive biography, as scholarly as it is entertaining."—The Economist
"Exceptionally fresh . . . . [Cranston] seems to know exactly what his readers need to know, and thoughtfully enriches the background—both physical and intellectual—of Rousseau's youthful peregrinations . . . . He makes the first part of Rousseau's life as absorbing as a picaresque novel. His fidelity to Rousseau's ideas and to his life as it was lived is a triumph of poise."—Naomi Bliven, The New Yorker
"The most outstanding achievement of Professor Cranston's own distinguished career."—Robert Wokler, Times Literary Supplement
Maurice Cranston (1920-1993), a distinguished scholar and recipient of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for his biography of John Locke, was professor of political science at the London School of Economics. His numerous books include The Romantic Movement and Philosophers and Pamphleteers, and translations of Rousseau's The Social Contract and Discourse on the Origins of Inequality.
Copies
No copies available.