Description: In this first single-volume English-language biography of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Damrosch mines the influential philosophers letters, memoirs, and writings to expose the eccentricities of a man who prefigured the modern mind.
Brief description:
LEO DAMROSCH was awarded the National Endowment for the Humanities and Guggenheim fellowships, among other honors. Currently the Ernest Bernbaum Professor of literature at Harvard University, he has written widely on eighteenth-century writers. He lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Review Quotes:
"These pages...bring to astonishing life...an impossible man whose books made modern life possible....Immensely enjoyable and fast-paced." --Louis Menand, author of The Metaphysical Club and American Studies
"An incisive, accessible, and sensitive portrait . . . Damrosch has performed a signal service." Publishers Weekly
"The erratic, inventive urgency of the life is all here. A delight to read." --Stacy Schiff The New York Times Book Review