"Man is born free, and everywhere he is in chains." So declared Jean-Jacques Rousseau in 1762, launching one of the most celebrated—and most dangerous—ideas in the history of Western thought. Two and a half centuries later, we are still arguing about what he meant, whether he was right, and why the pursuit of his vision has cost so many lives.

This book takes Rousseau's grand declaration and does something he might not have appreciated: it tests the claim against biology, neuroscience, existential philosophy, political history, and the looming age of artificial intelligence. What does it mean to be "born free" when no one consents to being born? Is nonexistence the ultimate liberation or its absolute negation? Why do people who fight for freedom so often end up worshipping it as an idol—and losing it in the process? And what would Rousseau make of a world where robots do the work and humans are left searching for a reason to get out of bed?

Moving from the donkey paralyzed between two haystacks to the wolf gnawing off its own leg, from a French peasant boy's predetermined fate to a modern child's dizzying possibilities, from the guillotine's blade to the general will's quiet tyranny, this book offers a sweeping, witty, and unsettling meditation on the concept that defines—and confounds—the modern world.

Born Free is not a biography of Rousseau. It is a conversation with him—one in which the listener is invited to talk back.