How long does it take to read The Social Contract?
The Social Contract by Jean-Jacques Rousseau takes about 4 hours 34 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.
About 4 hours 34 minutes
A weekend read
First published 1762. 249 pages, about 68,475 words.
10 days at 30 minutes a day
Estimate based on 275 words per page.
At other speeds
| Slow, 150 words a minute | 7 hours 37 minutes |
| Average, 250 words a minute | 4 hours 34 minutes |
| Fast, 400 words a minute | 2 hours 51 minutes |
The page count is the median across 216 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.
About the book
The Social Contract, published in 1762, is a work of political philosophy by the Genevan thinker Jean-Jacques Rousseau. It asks whether any political authority can be legitimate while remaining compatible with individual freedom, given the troubles of commercial society. Rousseau rejects rule based on force or divine right and holds that only the people's united general will may make laws, since then citizens obey only themselves. He separates lawmaking sovereignty from the executive government, links suitable forms of government to a state's size, and favors small city-states, while insisting that equality supports liberty.
This summary was written by AI and checked by a second AI model. How these are chosen.
Subjects: Peace, The State, Science politique, Economics, Fiction, Social contract
