The next up on my reading of the 306 greatest books is The Social Contract by Jean Jacques Rousseau. This book can be found on the Sybervision Book List.
This is definitely not the best book I have ever read, however it was interesting nonetheless. The Social Contract was similar to the other political commentary books on the list as I'm sure most of them do not differ much in tone, but it was written around the formation of the US Constitution and it is enlightening to see how this book influenced the formation of my country. Although interesting, I would not recommend this book since it is rather dry but it does bring up some rather good points. The main few I noticed were that according to Rousseau, the US is a representative aristocracy not a democracy. Because Rousseau, along with other political philosophers of the time, thought a large country would not be stable as a democracy so it could never work. The second is that The Social Contract showed the citizens of Europe that kings were not appointed by divine right but are only in power because the people let them be. This is partially what led to the civil unrest around the same time in many European countries. It you are interested in political theory, then this book is for you, otherwise I would not bother.
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