Voltaire and Rousseau

By: Charles Sherover

Narrated by: Lynn Redgrave

Length: 2 hrs and 50 mins

Publisher's Summary

In the great ferment of the French Revolution, Voltaire and Rousseau stood out as intellectual giants. Voltaire's incisive wit and commitment to translucent reason stands in sharp contrast to Rousseau's earnest convictions and attention to emotion. Both thinkers produced work of enduring value in morality and political philosophy.

The World of Philosophy series presents the questions, interests, and worldviews of the world's great philosophers and philosophical traditions. Special emphasis on clear and relevant explanations, in understandable language, give you a new arsenal of insights toward living a better life.

Don't miss other titles in the World of Philosophy series.

©1996 Carmichael & Carmichael, Inc. and Knowledge Products (P)1996 Carmichael & Carmichael, Inc. and Knowledge Products

superficial & annoyingly read

The author's presentation is superficial to the point of being faulty. He gives us a ton of quotes, and particularly from Voltaire's letters on England are good. His commentary adds nothing and reduces much.

The main reader is excellent. However, all the quotes are read by somebody else with mock German, French, Scotch and whatever accents. It is particularly annoying that the mock accent by which Voltaire is represented sounds like Dracula, since the book is full of Voltaire quotes.

You'll be much better off reading Voltaire's Letters on England and Rousseau's Social Contract instead.

Thank you

Thank you. Very enjoyable and well research with excellent quotes from brilliant philosophers and historians.

Highly recommend

Absolutely firing book. I highly recommend d reading for anyone across the world, especially if you live in the west.

Cheesy voice acting

The content is good and the narrative flows well, but whoever thought "lets have a voice actor with a French accent portray Voltaire!" needs a smack upside the head. As someone with an actual French accent, let me tell you: it's terrible. If you can get past that distraction this audiobook is a good basic intro to these important philosophers and their work.

helps you understand the times and theories

of these two philosophers. would love to listen to all the series. having it included in audible for free is awesome.

Enlightening

Such an enlightening work on the historical theories on government, economics & civil liberties. Brilliant

Worth reading

It’s an excellent short book on Voltaire and Rousseau. Have the character voices to help tell the voices was incredible. Lynn Redgrave was an outstanding narrator too.

should be required study for all students

Very valuable lessons to help understand the now failing government. I have listened to this now.

scratches the surface of their works

I liked the content, and also the lady that reads it, but the gentleman quoting the french lumiėres uses a quite peculiar accent. I rather enjoyed a plain english male voice.

Another very useful introduction.

Once more, these essays provide really useful and succinct expansions of chapters in 💀zBertrand Russell’s superb zHustory of Western Philosophy.
My only reservation here is the persistent use of a phone French accent for the quotations, which is patronising in two ways: firstly, that we don’t need to be reminded that these people were French, and secondly, because the accent slows down delivery to a pace that implies that the listeners must be idiots!
Other than this , the content and the critique seem fair and well judged.
Once again, the fact that this excellent material comes without charge is generous and commendable.

Average history, ruined by English Exceptionalism

For a such a short piece, the author finds several opportunities to talk about how special England is, which is not what I'm looking for when reading a book on French philosophers.

On the performance: Ms Redgrave is a perfectly good narrator but the men (or man) they have voicing the excerpts perpetrates some truly appalling accents.

Excellent

For the eternal learning these audiobooks delve into diverse epistemology of philosophy and philosophers of throughout human experience.