Tzvetan Todorov is a director of research at the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS) in Paris. A linguist, literary theorist, and world-renowned essayist, he is the author of numerous books, several of which have been translated into English, including: Voices from the Gulag: Life and Death in Communist Bulgaria (Penn State, 1999). John T. Scott is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of California at Davis. Robert D. Zaretsky is Associate Professor of French at the University of Houston, where he holds a joint appointment in the Honors College and the Department of Modern and Classical Languages.

“This translation . . . is doubly welcome. . . . [It] offers readers both an insightful interpretation of Rousseau, one that presents him explicitly as a moral theorist, and an introduction to Todorov’s own contributions to what he calls a ‘critical humanism’.”—Zev M. Trachtenberg Ethics