In this study, Merle L. Perkins links individual freedom with national power in offering a close reading of Jean-Jacques Rousseau's major texts. He sees in Rousseau's thought an extreme tension and interdependence between the idiosyncrasy of nonconforming character and an almost obsessive concern with the external pressures operating on the state.

Merle L. Perkins is the author of numerous books on philosophy, including The Moral and Political Philosophy of the Abbé de Saint-Pierre and Diderot and the Time-Space Continuum: His Philosophy, Aesthetics, and Politics.