Another novel by Jean-Jacques Rousseau, which I've just finished. I found this fascinating, both as philosophy and as an insight into French society in the eighteenth century.
The novel was published in 1762 in Paris. In the guise of a tutor talking about the education of his student, Emile, Rousseau expounds his views on topics such as education, religion, the role of women, citizenship, city vs country life, and marriage. I begin to understand what the French Enlightenment was about, because some of his ideas must have been quite revolutionary for the time.
Before I read this, I associated Rousseau's name with the idea of the social contract (thanks to an anthropology class some years ago) and now have a better understanding of what that actually means.
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