A review by lj_crook
A Discourse on Inequality by Jean-Jacques Rousseau

3.0

Despite its age, this slim volume is clear and intelligible to the modern reader. Rousseau makes the argument (not unlike that of Yuval Harari in Sapiens!) that mankind was better off before civilization began with the advent of agriculture. However, his personal biases lead him to a certainty that humans are instinctively solitary and would have rarely crossed paths with others in the state of nature, despite his own use of highly sociable primates as examples to prove his other suppositions. The essay, therefore, provides some interesting insight into the mind of the 18th century philosopher, but didn't draw me in with a sense of timeless truth.

This edition contains a detailed foreword about Rousseau's life, and also starts off with a bizarre and sycophantic preface dedicated to the city-state of Geneva. The notes were good but unfortunately, due to the (rightful) inclusion of Rousseau's own fascinating notes, I had to keep four pages open at any one time: essay page, Rousseau's notes for that page, editor's notes for the essay page, and editor's notes for Rousseau's notes! Footnotes on the page would have been preferable.