The Social Contract: Or Principles of Political Right

Social Contract takes up an argument which had begun with Bodin and Hobbes, and been continued by Grotius, Spinoza, and Locke to form the foundation of political thinking in the eighteenth century.

The Social Contract is a work of consummate rhetorical skill; but it is also a prolonged sleight of hand in which what is most questionable is carefully hidden behind the magnificent flourishes of the prose.