J.S. Mill Revisited

Bruce Kinzer offers a rich examination of personal and political themes in the life of the most influential liberal thinker of the nineteenth century. He investigates young Mill’s formative period and his relations with his father, Harriet Taylor, and Thomas Carlyle. Kinzer explores issues that bear upon our understanding of Mill as an engaged political thinker and actor and offers a complex portrait of Mill’s life and politics.

Bruce Kinzer is Professor of History, Kenyon College.

Introduction * Father, Son, and Manly Spirit * Gathering Truths, 1826-1830 * Mill and Harriet Taylor: The Early Years * Mystifying the Mystic: Mill and Carlyle in the 1830s * Mill and the Secret Ballot * Mill and the Problem of Party * Mill and the Experience of Political Engagement