Cranston concludes his three-volume biography of Rousseau (Jean
Jacques: The Early Life and Work, 1983; The Noble Savage, 1991)
with a dispassionate chronicle of the philosopher's bitter last
years - a period of exile, persecution, and paranoia. Cranston died
just before finishing the biography; his colleague Sanford Lakoff
(Univ. of Calif.) has added a final chapter using Cranston's notes
and the text of a lecture, adding a useful epilogue distilled from
Cranston's previous books on Rousseau's thought. Cranston ended The
Noble Savage with Rousseau's transformation from "literary
celebrity to cult figure" after the publication of The Social
Contract, and Julie, ou la Nouvelle Heloise. Infamy closely
followed fame: When friends tied to have his novel Emile published
in Paris, it was condemned, publicly burned, and a warrant was
issued for his arrest. He was forced into uncertain wanderings,
which Cranston conscientiously tracks. Staying above Rousseau's
emotional perspective, Cranston traces his increasingly heated
dealings with his publisher and his feuds with the group of Paris
philosophes dominated by Voltaire. Rousseau was thrown out of the
Swiss canton of Neuchatel, where he had found asylum, after Letters
from the Mountains, a work highly critical of the Swiss, was
published. He traveled to Bern, had a romantic interlude on the
isle of Saint-Pierre, then had to flee again. He accepted David
Hume's offer of asylum in England. Cranston gives an admirably
impartial account of the stormy relationship of this philosophical
odd couple, though he gives scant attention to the composition of
the Confessions, which occurred roughly simultaneously. He is,
however, always meticulously objective in tracing Rousseau's
franctic actions and complex, contradictory character. A sober,
concise chaser to the intoxicating Confessions (though more a
starting point than the last word on that work) and a muted, though
moving, conclusion to a remarkable work of scholarship and
sympathy. (Kirkus Reviews)
A monumental achievement, Maurice Cranston's trilogy provides the
definitive account of Jean-Jacques Rousseau's turbulent life. Now
available in paperback, this final volume completes a masterful
biography of one of the most important philosophers of all time.
"The Solitary Self "traces the last tempestuous years of Rousseau's
life.
""The Solitary Self" is a fitting coda to a magisterial work.
Cranston . . . is a compelling stylist who narrates Rousseau's
tribulations with a mixture of compassion and dry humor."--Thomas
Pavel, "Wall Street Journal"
"Cranston not only recreates for his readers a rounded view of
Rousseau himself, he sets it firmly in the social and political
context of Europe's "ancien regime," . . . An engrossing work of
history."--John Gray, "New Statesman"
"Cranston's painstaking archival research and lucid style yield the
most detailed and thoroughly documented biography of Rousseau
written in English. His epilogue masterfully sums up Rousseau's
importance as political philosopher and initiator of romantic
sensibilities."--"Choice"
"Anyone curious about the paradoxes of a most paradoxical man will
not go wrong by starting with this invaluable biography."--James
Miller, "Washington Post Book World"
"As absorbing as a picaresque novel."--Naomi Bliven, "New Yorker"
"A monument of scholarship. . . . This amazing biography, like
Boswell's account of Johnson, recreates the daily life of Rousseau:
what he did, who he saw, what he said, what he wrote. . . . We may
be quite confident that we hold in our hands the authoritative
account of this life. The definitive Rousseau."--Isaac Kramnick,
"New Republic"
Maurice Cranston (1920-1993), adistinguished scholar and recipient
of the James Tait Black Memorial Prize for his biography of John
Locke, was professor of political science at the London School of
Economics. His numerous books include "The Romantic Movement" and
"Philosophers and Pamphleteers," and translations of Rousseau's
"The Social Contract" and "Discourse on the Origins of Inequality,"
General
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