Jean-Jacques Rousseau

Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a Genevan philosopher, writer and composer. His political philosophy influenced the progress of the Age of Enlightenment throughout Europe, as well as aspects of the French Revolution and the development of modern political, economic and educational thought. Born in 1712 and dying in 1778, he also wrote the autobiographical Confessions. His Discourse on Inequality and The Social Contract are cornerstones of modern political and social thought, his sentimental novel Julie, or the New Heloise, was important to the development of romanticism in fiction, and his Emile is an educational treatise on the place of the individual in society.