Scan barcode
numbersarereal's review against another edition
If you get past the first part which seems to be questionable takes in Anthropology more so than either philosophy or the foundation for an argument, the second part is a very interesting and scarily relevant look into illegitimate rule and tyranny.
mljohnson2698's review against another edition
3.0
Okay this is pretty boring but occasionally laugh out loud funny. What a ride.
emma_klein's review against another edition
4.0
Damn, Rousseau. Too relevant for me to handle...wonder what he would have to say about the Trump presidency/administration.
"We could see the multitude oppressed from within as a consequence of the very precautions taken against external threats; we could see a constant increase in oppression without the oppressed ever being in a position to know where it would end, or what legitimate means they had for halting it. We could see the rights of citizens and the freedom of nations gradually extinguished, and the protests of the weak treated as the mutterings of sedition. We could see politics restrict the honour of defending the common cause to a venal segment of the populace; we could consequently see the necessity of taxation arise and the disheartened farmer quitting his fields even in peace time, and forsaking his plough to gird on the sword. We would see bizarre and deadly codes of honor arise."
"...we would see leaders stirring up everything that might weaken assemblies of men by disuniting them, everything that might give society an air of seeming concord and sow in the seeds of real disunity, everything that might inspire distrust and mutual hatred in different social orders through conflict between their rights and their interests, and by these means, strengthen the power that curbs them all."
"We could see the multitude oppressed from within as a consequence of the very precautions taken against external threats; we could see a constant increase in oppression without the oppressed ever being in a position to know where it would end, or what legitimate means they had for halting it. We could see the rights of citizens and the freedom of nations gradually extinguished, and the protests of the weak treated as the mutterings of sedition. We could see politics restrict the honour of defending the common cause to a venal segment of the populace; we could consequently see the necessity of taxation arise and the disheartened farmer quitting his fields even in peace time, and forsaking his plough to gird on the sword. We would see bizarre and deadly codes of honor arise."
"...we would see leaders stirring up everything that might weaken assemblies of men by disuniting them, everything that might give society an air of seeming concord and sow in the seeds of real disunity, everything that might inspire distrust and mutual hatred in different social orders through conflict between their rights and their interests, and by these means, strengthen the power that curbs them all."
s_books's review against another edition
3.0
Rousseau chronicles the history of mankind from its savage beginnings to its somewhat less savage ideal epoch to its contemporary civilized-yet-miserable societies. While definitely more believable and less wacko than Vico's New Science, slightly more flawed when compared with Kant's Idea of a Universal History. But still a good theory of how mankind came to have inequality (which, at least according to Rousseau, is not its natural state).
toeys's review against another edition
3.0
Rousseau made really good points that are still relevant today, but I feel that he could have done it more concisely.