Jean-Jacques Rousseau
1712 CE–1778 CE · Philosopher · Geneva
Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a Genevan-born philosopher, writer, and composer of the European Enlightenment. Orphaned of his mother in infancy and largely self-taught, he left Geneva as a youth and settled for years in France. His "Discourse on the Sciences and Arts" (1750) and "Discourse on the Origin of Inequality" (1755) questioned whether civilization improved humanity. In "The Social Contract" (1762) he argued that legitimate authority rests on the collective agreement of the people, opening with the line that man is born free yet is everywhere in chains. His treatise "Emile" reshaped thinking on education, and his posthumous "Confessions" pioneered modern autobiography.
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Geneva
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The world in their lifetime
Thinkers, teachers, and rulers whose lives overlapped with Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.
Luminaries & Explorers world
- Georg Philipp Telemann· 1681 CE–1767 CE
- George Frideric Handel· 1685 CE–1759 CE
- George Berkeley· 1685 CE–1753 CE
- Johann Sebastian Bach· 1685 CE–1750 CE
- Alexander Pope· 1688 CE–1744 CE
- Montesquieu· 1689 CE–1755 CE
- Voltaire· 1694 CE–1778 CE
- Henry Fielding· 1707 CE–1754 CE
- Samuel Johnson· 1709 CE–1784 CE
- David Hume· 1711 CE–1776 CE
- Denis Diderot· 1713 CE–1784 CE
- Christoph Willibald Gluck· 1714 CE–1787 CE
- Cao Xueqin· 1715 CE–1763 CE
- Adam Smith· 1723 CE–1790 CE
- Immanuel Kant· 1724 CE–1804 CE
- James Cook· 1728 CE–1779 CE
- Edmund Burke· 1729 CE–1797 CE
- Joseph Haydn· 1732 CE–1809 CE
- Edward Gibbon· 1737 CE–1794 CE
- Thomas Paine· 1737 CE–1809 CE
- Cesare Beccaria· 1738 CE–1794 CE
- Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart· 1756 CE–1791 CE
- Robert Burns· 1759 CE–1796 CE
- Mary Wollstonecraft· 1759 CE–1797 CE
Scientists
Christian world
Jewish world
Islamic world
Rulers world
- Peter III· 1728 CE–1762 CE
- Mustafa III· 1717 CE–1774 CE
- Karim Khan Zand· 1705 CE–1779 CE
- Pontiac (Obwandiyag)· 1714 CE–1769 CE
- Maria Theresa· 1717 CE–1780 CE
- Frederick the Great· 1712 CE–1786 CE
- Hyder Ali· 1720 CE–1782 CE
- Charles III of Spain· 1716 CE–1788 CE
- Ivan VI· 1740 CE–1764 CE
- Elizabeth (Elizabeth Petrovna)· 1709 CE–1762 CE
- Yeongjo of Joseon· 1694 CE–1776 CE
- Qianlong Emperor· 1711 CE–1799 CE
- Abdulhamid I· 1725 CE–1789 CE
- Osman III· 1699 CE–1757 CE
Works
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