Book excerpt: "Franco explores the relationship between Nietzsche and Rousseau and their critique of modern life. Franco begins by arguing that 'among philosophers, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Friedrich Nietzsche are perhaps the two most influential explorers and shapers of the moral and cultural imagination of late modernity.' And yet Nietzsche was often highly critical of Rousseau. Indeed, their critiques of modern life differ in important respects. Rousseau focused on the growing political and economic inequality in modern society and proposed a more egalitarian politics. Nietzsche decried the inability of society to take account of the exceptional individual and found Rousseau's political ideas wrong-headed"--Publisher marketing.