Jean-Jacques Rousseau (born in Geneva, June 28, 1712, and died in Ermenonville, July 2, 1778, at the age of 66) was a Genevan writer, philosopher, and botanist. He is considered one of the most important writers of the Enlightenment, a period in European history that spanned from the late 17th to the late 18th centuries. Rousseau’s philosophy helped shape the political events that led to the French Revolution. His works influenced education, literature, and politics.

His book, *The Social Contract*, is considered a cornerstone of modern political and social thought. Rousseau’s sentimental novel, *Julie, or the New Heloise* (1761), was a significant influence on the development of the pre-Romantic and Romantic movements in fiction. His work, *On Education: Emile as a Model* (1762), is considered a didactic treatise on the individual’s place in society. Rousseau’s autobiographical writings—such as his 1769 Confessions, published posthumously and considered the foundation of modern autobiography, and his unfinished work, Reveries of a Solitary Walker—represented the age of sensibility in the late 18th century, demonstrating the increased emphasis on subjectivity and introspection that would later characterize modern writing.

Rousseau formed a friendship with the philosopher Denis Diderot in 1742 and later wrote about Diderot’s romantic problems in Confessions. He was the most prominent philosopher among the Jacobin Club members during the French Revolution. His tomb, erected as a national hero’s tomb in the Pantheon in Paris, was completed in 1794, sixteen years after his death.