J. S. Mill's Political Thought: A Bicentennial Reassessment

Extract

J. S. Mill's Political Thought: A Bicentennial Reassessment. Edited by Nadia Urbinati and Alex Zakaras. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2007. 400p. $85.00 cloth, $27.99 paper.

John Stuart Mill is as famous for his celebrated contradictions as for the originality of his thinking. What else should we expect from a disciple of the likes of Bentham and Coleridge, Saint-Simon and Tocqueville, Wilhelm Von Humboldt and Auguste Comte? Much of the two centuries since Mill's birth has been spent trying to figure out how all of these diverse influences can be made to fit together into one tidy package, and this may explain why there are almost as many renditions of J. S. Mill as there are Mill interpreters. Simultaneously heralded as the poster child of libertarianism and of social control, defender of women's rights and whipping boy of contemporary feminists, aristocratic critic of democratic culture and defender of Athenian-style participatory democracy, a liberal reformer who condoned empire—the list of Mill's paradoxes goes on and on. What makes this volume such a breath of fresh air is the way these essays build upon, without duplicating, traditional interpretations. Original, illuminating, and suggestive of altogether new directions in Mill scholarship, this collection should carry us well into the third full century of engagement with his life and political thought.