1. Introduction; 2. Book I; 3. Book II; 4. Book III; 5. Book IV; 6. Conclusion; Appendix A. On the general will; Appendix B. On women in the Social Contract?
Rousseau's Social Contract: An Introduction offers a thorough and systematic tour of this notoriously paradoxical and challenging text.
David Lay Williams is Associate Professor of Political Science at DePaul University and the author of Rousseau's Platonic Enlightenment (2007) and The General Will: The Evolution of a Concept (forthcoming from Cambridge University Press), as well as numerous articles in journals such as History of Political Thought, the Journal of the History of Ideas, The Journal of Politics, The American Journal of Political Science, and Polity. He has twice held fellowships at the Institute for Research in the Humanities at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, as well as a fellowship at the DePaul Humanities Center. He was formerly Professor of Philosophy and Political Science at the University of Wisconsin, Stevens Point.
'David Lay Williams's splendid new commentary on Rousseau's
greatest contribution to political philosophy will rapidly become
the 'standard' work on this subject. In The Social Contract
Rousseau formulates his most famous idea, 'the general will', and
Williams throws more light on this difficult notion than any
scholar in the past half-century. This is a truly remarkable book.'
Patrick Riley, author of The General Will Before Rousseau
'David Lay Williams's masterful Rousseau's Social Contract
clarifies a notoriously difficult work without explaining away the
paradoxes that animate it. Students, teachers, and grizzled
political science veterans will all benefit from Williams's eye for
textual detail, his attention to Rousseau's context, and his
knowledge of and fair-mindedness toward rival interpretations.'
Jonathan Marks, Ursinus College, Pennsylvania
'Both immensely useful to students and a deeply illuminating
resource for scholars, David Lay Williams offers a fine-grained
interpretation of Rousseau's Social Contract that incisively
connects it to his other writings, to his intellectual forebears
and contemporaries, and to some of his most important successors.
An impressive achievement that will benefit readers of Rousseau
long into the future.' Sankar Muthu, University of Chicago
'David Lay Williams has written a very helpful introduction to
Rousseau's Social Contract. Organized around a systematic,
chapter-by-chapter walk-through of the text, Williams's book stands
as a valuable guide to the central lessons and tensions of
Rousseau's most notable and notorious political work. The clarity
of its analysis, together with its sensitivity to Rousseau's
intellectual and political contexts as well as today's scholarly
debates, will render this book extremely useful to students and
teachers alike.' Ryan Patrick Hanley, Marquette University,
Wisconsin
'[This] is a very good book indeed. As the author of a rival
commentary, I would press the case for serious students of Rousseau
to have more than one discussion of the Social Contract on their
shelves, but David Lay Williams' book sets an impressively high
standard in this area. Anyone wishing to decode the mysteries of
the general will and to pick apart its ambiguities needs to read
it.' Christopher Bertram, Notre Dame Philosophical Reviews
'Providing a thoughtful and clear guide for those who wish to study
Rousseau's Social Contract, Williams' considerable knowledge and
research not only about Rousseau, but also Western political
thought make this work highly recommended.' Sharon K. Vaughan,
Review of Metaphysics
'Williams does admirably well in addressing the most difficult
problems Rousseau's text presents, while - and this is what most
distinguishes the book - situating Rousseau's argument within the
context of the history of political thought. … There is much to
recommend in the book, but two things in particular stand out.
First, Williams' emphasis on virtue is a welcome corrective to more
procedural treatments of Rousseau's political theory. Second,
Williams' careful reading of Books III and IV, which are often
neglected in the scholarship on Rousseau, is the best available
account of the relevance of Rousseau's history of Rome for the
philosophical argument of Books I and II of the text.' Jason
Neidleman, Perspectives on Politics
'The chief merit of David Lay Williams's Rousseau's Social
Contract: An Introduction lies in the way it confronts the many
tensions of a work notorious for the extent of disagreement (and
outright hostility) generated over its purported meaning. While
Williams's reading offers a reliable guide to the conflicting
interpretations, it also situates Du contrat social within the
context of Rousseau's thinking and its philosophical legacy.' Marco
M. Di Palma, French Studies
'… David Lay Williams contribute[s] [a] meticulous interpretation
and [analysis] that offer[s] excellent up-to-date resources for
students and scholars.' Manjeet Ramgotra, The Review of Politics
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