Widely regarded as the first modern autobiography, "The Confessions" is an aston
ishing work of acute psychological insight. Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-78) argu
ed passionately against the inequality he believed to be intrinsic to civilized
society. In his "Confessions" he relives the first fifty-three years of his radi
cal life with vivid immediacy - from his earliest years, where we can see the so
urce of his belief in the innocence of childhood, through the development of his
philosophical and political ideas, his struggle against the French authorities
and exile from France following the publication of "Emile".
Depicting a life
of adventure, persecution, paranoia, and brilliant achievement, "The Confessions
" is a landmark work by one of the greatest thinkers of the Enlightenment, which
was a direct influence upon the work of Proust, Goethe and Tolstoy among others
.
