This is episode 1 of the new HISTORY OF IDEAS series from Talking Politics. To hear the remaining 11 episodes, please subscribe to History of Ideas!

Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s Discourse on Inequality (also known as the Second Discourse) tells the story of all human history to answer one simple question: how did we end up in such an unequal world? David explores the steps Rousseau traces in the fall of humankind and asks whether this is a radical alternative to the vision offered by Hobbes or just a variant on it. Is Rousseau really such a nice philosopher?

Free online version of text

Recommended version to purchase

Going deeper…

• Leo Damrosch, Jean Jacques Rousseau: Restless Genius (2005)
• David Edmonds and John Eidinow, Rousseau’s Dog (2007)
• Pankaj Mishra, ‘How Rousseau predicted Trump’, The New Yorker (2016)
• (Audio) In Our Time, The Social Contract