This collection of essays chronicles the achievements of French painters, such as Gericault, Ingres and Delacroix, their stylistic and philosophical rivalries and disputes. In doing so, she confronts the complex clashes of the Romantic and Classical movements themselves. The book moves on to Rousseau, "The "Social Contract", examining his relationship to the philosophers of the day and to Diderot. A variety of pieces on 18th- and 19th-century French art and literature, including Stendhal, Baudelaire, Corot and Courbet, also appear in this collection.