num_pages: 155
description: John Stuart Mill was one of Britain's greatest philosophers and radical politicians whose views had a profound influence on thinking on liberty, social policy and gender relations. William Stafford's accessible new study outlines Mill's reputation from his lifetime to the present, together with a discussion of the major areas of his moral and political thought. During his lifetime Mills was scurrilously abused and threatened for his views on the British Empire, feminism and socialism. He was often disparaged as a confused and unoriginal thinker, but in his later years he maintained a national and international reputation which no subsequent British thinker has matched. Recent scholarship has vindicated his power, originality and continuing relevance, and rival ideologies have battled to claim him as a precursor. This book presents him as a consistent and engaged radical politician, defending democracy while thinking subtly about its problems, advocating a non-paternalistic, non-welfarist form of socialism, and placing women's issues on the agenda.
language: English
title: John Stuart Mill
titlecomplete: John Stuart Mill (British History in Perspective)
genres: Philosophy, Biography
ratings_count: 9
series: British History in Perspective
publisher: Palgrave Macmillan