Revolutionizing Rousseau: an analysis of the political thought of Jean-Paul Marat, Georges Jacques Danton, and Maximilien Robespierre

In this thesis, I investigate the influence of Rousseauean ideas on the political thinking of the French Revolutionary figures Jean-Paul Marat, Georges Jacques Danton, and Maximilien Robespierre. By analyzing the views of these writers on the concepts of 1) the general will, 2) public and private virtue, 3) revolutionary dictatorship, and 4) social control and coercion, it shows how they manipulated and transformed Rousseauean ideas into revolutionary ideology, and how they applied it in a chaotic political context. The study suggests that it is only by analyzing the political thought of Marat, Danton, and Robespierre that a more complete understanding of the Terror and a better understanding of its enduring legacy can be found