Reasoned and impassioned controversy have accompanied The Social Contract since its publication in 1762. Once the book entered conversations about the foundations and ends of modern politics, it never left them.

Immanuel Kant’s debt to Rousseau, for example, was deep and multidimensional. He drew many of his own ethical and political arguments from contemplating Rousseau’s philosophy, including the general will and other ideas that extended well beyond the portrait of Rousseau that famously adorned his otherwise sparsely decorated study.