[headsonpikes]

Jacob Talmon's 'The Origins of Totalitarian Democracy' elegantly connects the dots between Rousseau and his brother French philosophes and their German Idealist successors, Hegel and Marx.

Not to mention the more existential connection of the French Revolution to Stalin, Pol Pot, and the other modern wholesalers of socialism and genocide.

The American and French Revolutions are competitors historically and intellectually, not allies.

[Borges]

Let me add Karl Popper's 'The Free Society and its Enemies'. Rosseau was a fascinating figure. I want to read his 'Confessions' one day. His ideas about childhood education are still very much with us and in full force.