Rousseau and Revolution: A History of Civilization in France, England, and Germany from 1756, and in the Remainder of Europe from 1715 to 1789

The Pulitzer Prize–winning volume on European civilization by acclaimed historians Will and Ariel Durant

Rousseau and Revolution, the tenth volume of the Story of Civilization, ranges over a Europe in ferment, but centers on the passionate rebel—philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the great exponent of the romantic impulse toward self-exploration and social revolt, who contended with the great rationalist Voltaire for the mind of Europe. Rousseau condemned civilization as a disease, glorified the noble savage, proclaimed to the world with equal intensity his own love affairs and the natural rights of man, and became the patron saint of the revolution and the worldwide social upheavals of two centuries.