It is indeed a pleasure to introduce this collection of essays that honor one of the world's leading scholars in the field of utopian studies. I have known Lyman Tower Sargent since 1986, when upon moving to St. Louis I was delighted to discover that we lived a short distance away from each other. Our collaboration on a variety of projects has continued ever since then, most notably in the series Utopianism and Communitarianism, published by Syracuse University Press; as intellectual (...) advisers to the New York Public Library/Bibliothèque Nationale exhibition Utopia, which took place in 2000; in the two editions of The Utopia Reader ; in many years of joint "skills"... (shrink)

Many discussions of J. S. Mill's concept of liberty focus too narrowly on On Liberty and fail to acknowledge that his treatment of related issues elsewhere may modify its leading doctrines. Mill and Paternalism demonstrates how a contextual reading suggests that in Principles of Political Economy, and also his writings on Ireland, India and on domestic issues like land reform, Mill proposed a substantially more interventionist account of the state than On Liberty seems to imply. This helps to explain Mill's (...) sympathies for socialism after 1848, as well as his Malthusianism and feminism, which, in conjunction with Harriet Taylor's views, are central to his later discussions of the family and marriage. Feminism, indeed, is shown to provide the answer to the problem which most agitated Mill, overpopulation. Thus Gregory Claeys sheds new lights on many of Mill's overarching preoccupations, including the theory of liberty at the heart of On Liberty. (shrink)

In lieu of an abstract, here is a brief excerpt of the content:Journal of the History of Ideas 61.2 (2000) 223-240 [Access article in PDF] The "Survival of the Fittest" and the Origins of Social Darwinism Gregory Claeys * In late September 1838 a young man, aged 29, a former medical student and amateur naturalist, who had spent several years in the South Pacific studying plant and animal life, but who remained puzzled as to why "favourable variants" of each species (...) survived while "unfavourable variants" were destroyed, sat perusing a book, as he later recalled, "for amusement." 1 The work which provoked Charles Darwin was T. R. Malthus's Essay on Population (1798), which he later claimed first suggested to him the idea that "on the whole the best fitted live." This idea Darwin would popularize through the notion of the "struggle for existence," a phrase which he famously claimed to use as a "metaphor" but which meant simply "the doctrine of Malthus applied with manifold force to the whole animal and vegetable kingdoms." 2 That application resulted in the publication [End Page 223] of the Origin of Species in 1859, an occasion hailed as "the greatest event of Queen Victoria's reign," 3 even "by far the most important... in the history of the modern West." 4 It is well known, too, that Darwin's appreciation of Malthus was not unique even among naturalists. The year before the Origin of Species appeared another young man, Alfred Russel Wallace, aged 25, encountered the very same book. "There suddenly," he later recalled, flashed upon him "the idea of the survival of the fittest." 5 We know Wallace today, thus, as the codiscoverer of theory of natural selection, who presented a paper jointly with Darwin at the Linnean Society on that momentous evening of 1 July 1858 to mark their brilliant achievement. 6This curious coincidence has often been noted, but its ramifications require further assessment. This article examines some crucial nineteenth-century sources of the idea of the "survival of the fittest," which came to underpin many of the social and political doctrines later associated with the theory of natural selection, and also what were regarded as some of the limits of this idea. 7 It contends that there was in fact far more than mere coincidence in the obviously provocative role played by Malthus's Essay for both Darwin and Wallace. 8 It argues, [End Page 224] therefore, against the presumption of tacit causality--logically implicit in the concept of "Social Darwinism" 9 --that much of the social and political theory which nominally invoked Darwin was fundamentally derived from, as opposed to being reinforced by, the principles of natural selection. It challenges the view that the logic of discovery in the natural sciences, in other words, induced parallel or derivative concepts in the social sciences and that the "survival of the fittest" emerged first as a natural, and then mutated into a social concept. Instead it suggests that what was specific about much of Social Darwinism resulted from several shifts in thought in mid-Victorian Britain to which Darwin himself also responded and which therefore also vitally influenced his own development.No doubt, of course, this assertion of causation contains some truth. Darwin was extraordinarily widely read and extraordinarily influential. We are all aware of the great theological debates associated with his name in late Victorian Britain, of the counter-attack against Darwin begun by Bishop Wilberforce in June 1860, and of the tenacious war of attrition conducted by "Darwin's bulldog," T. H. Huxley, who coined the term "agnostic" in 1869 to define the lack of scientific evidence for the existence of God. 10 Much has been written of the moral panic and growing loss of religious faith, paralleling the course of Darwin's own "reluctant agnosticism," which followed the conclusion that human beings had been levelled to the status of animals and deprived of a special Providential creation as well as any divine purpose in the perpetuation of their species. In history a tremendous impetus was given to the search for certain laws of social development. In social... (shrink)

The little book we now familiarly refer to as Utopia was published five hundred years ago in Leuven, the capital of what is today the Flemish province of Brabant in Belgium. As a work of fantasy it has had an astonishingly successful history. As both the no-place and the good-place, then eventually perhaps also the place-one-should-not-go, the dream that becomes a nightmare when we try to realize it, utopia has become inscribed in our vocabulary and our ideas. It means many (...) things to many people, yet few would deny the power of the concept. So it is worth briefly revisiting just how this has mutated over the centuries.First, then, to Sir Thomas and his ideas. The text is presented to us in the form of a... (shrink)

This article examines approaches to early socialism from an intellectual history viewpoint, focussing on British Owenite socialism. It assesses the author's own research in the field over the past thirty-five years in an effort to measure the strengths and weaknesses of the approaches he initially adopted to the field. It attempts to balance insights associated with the so-called “Cambridge School” with those gained in particular from the standpoints of the history of religion and the history of emotions, and a theory (...) of group identity which can in part be associated with the history of utopianism. (shrink)

Eighteenth-century Dissenting Academies provided a liberal education oriented towards practical and commercial subjects, and began the earliest sustained development of political economy teaching in Britain. Leading tutors, like Joseph Priestley and Richard Price, as well as students like William Godwin, were however divided on key issues such as luxury, and the degree to which machinery and the division of labour could be extended without harming the labouring classes.

_Encyclopedia of Nineteenth Century Thought_ provides essential information on, and a critical interpretation of, nineteenth-century thought and nineteenth-century thinkers. The project takes as its temporal boundary the period 1789 to 1914. _Encyclopedia of Nineteenth Century Thought_ primarily covers social and political thinking, but key entries also survey science, religion, law, art, concepts of modernity, the body and health, and so on, and thereby take into account all of the key developments in the intellectual history of the period. The encyclopedia is (...) alphabetically organized, and consists of: * principal entries, divided into ideas and persons * subsidiary entries of 1000 words, which are entirely biographical * informational entries of 500 words, which are also biographical. (shrink)

_Encyclopedia of Nineteenth Century Thought_ provides essential information on, and a critical interpretation of, nineteenth-century thought and nineteenth-century thinkers. The project takes as its temporal boundary the period 1789 to 1914. _Encyclopedia of Nineteenth Century Thought_ primarily covers social and political thinking, but key entries also survey science, religion, law, art, concepts of modernity, the body and health, and so on, and thereby take into account all of the key developments in the intellectual history of the period. The encyclopedia is (...) alphabetically organized, and consists of: * principal entries, divided into ideas and persons * subsidiary entries of 1000 words, which are entirely biographical * informational entries of 500 words, which are also biographical. (shrink)

After the many meetings held in 2016 to commemorate the five hundredth anniversary of the publication of Thomas More's Utopia, it seems fitting that we should consider the relevance of its central themes to the idea of what Europe has come to represent in the past sixty years or so. This article will proceed by recalling More's leading ideas and then indicating how later thinkers, especially after 1800, moved some of these in a specifically European direction. After touching on some (...) key moments in the European utopian narrative, this article will briefly consider some discordant dystopian episodes in this story. Then it will turn to the present and to our prospects for the longer-term future, or, at any rate, the rest of the twenty-first century. (shrink)

This article considers how John Stuart Mill's relationship with philosophical necessitarianism, or the idea that character is formed by external circumstances, came to pervade his later thought, and was central to his eventual presentation of the famous theory of liberty outlined in _ On Liberty _, for which he remains best known today. My main argument here extends Bernard Semmel's suggestion that "The conflict between philosophical liberty and necessity, between free will and determinism, was critical to the argument of _ (...) On _ _ Liberty _, in keeping with the central role it played in Mill's thought", by providing a more extended discussion of the Owenite background in particular. Contrary to the disingenuous disclaimer Mill offers initially in _ On Liberty _, the doctrine of free will is actually central to his case for individuality, and to his defence of social liberty. This was in turn the outcome of a process of deliberation about these issues which had been ongoing since 1826. My concern he... (shrink)

John Stuart Mill (1806-73) is widely regarded as the leading liberal philosopher, economist, and political theorist of nineteenth century Britain. In his lifetime he was best known for his System of Logic (1843) and the Principles of Political Economy (1848). Today Mill is chiefly identified with On Liberty (1859), perhaps the definitive text of modern liberal statement of its subject, and probably the single most important work of modern political thought. Mill was also the first major male feminist thinker of (...) the period (author of The Subjection of Women, 1869), and the first, as an MP, to introduce a bill for female enfranchisement before Parliament. This Very Short Introduction offers a brief survey of the life and key ideas of this most influential Victorian British writer. Moving chronologically, Gregory Claeys outlines the philosophical background out of which Mill developed, chiefly through the ideas of Jeremy Bentham and James Mill. He demonstrates how Mill's personal life, especially his 'mental crisis' of 1827, and his relationship with Harriet Taylor, were integral to his intellectual development. Throughout Claeys considers Mill's key works set within the context of his lesser writings and correspondence, and discusses the more controversial aspects of his thought concerning religion, secularism, and birth control. (shrink)

I am grateful to the editor of this journal for the opportunity to respond to Tom Moylan's comments on my Dystopia: A Natural History. There are some serious misapprehensions about my arguments in Moylan's treatment, as well as a failure to engage with some of the central themes of the book. Substantial differences also clearly exist between my approach and Moylan's approach to the subject of dystopia and indeed to scholarly engagement in general. Illuminating these further might well assist students (...) of the subject to further explore the relevant issues.Moylan is chiefly a student of science fiction rather than dystopian fiction as such. His two books are mainly concerned with the period from the 1970s... (shrink)

This chapter summarizes current predictions as to the likely prospect of environmental catastrophe in the coming century, and then asks a series of questions about prospective Marxist responses to the problem. A brief overview of Marx's view of nature reveals an ambiguity about prospective future consumption by the working classes in a communist society. This is followed by scrutiny of Soviet approaches to consumerism in particular in which a similar tension is evident between opposition to crass consumerism and luxury and (...) the need to satisfy widespread and increasing demands for commodities. Here a degree of inevitability in the development of consumer culture is evident. Finally the specific problems resulting from the need to place an abrupt brake on patterns of industrialization is addressed. An eight-point programme is indicated as necessary to tackle the most obvious immediate issues. (shrink)

The nineteenth century was seemingly a period of great progress. Huge advancements and achievements were made in science, technology and industry that transformed life and work alike. But a growing pride in modernity and innovation was tainted by a sense of the loss of the past and the multiple threats which novelty posed. The Cambridge Companion to Nineteenth-Century Thought provides an impressive survey of the period's major ideas and trends. Leading scholars explore some of the most influential concepts and debates (...) within philosophy, history, political thought, economics, religion and the social sciences, as well as feminism and imperialism. Some of these debates continued into the following century and many still remain relevant in the present day. This Companion is an excellent tool for readers seeking to understand the genesis of modern discourse across a range of humanities and social science subjects. (shrink)

INTRODUCTION THE AGE OF PAINE I know not whether any Man in the World has had more influence on its inhabitants or affairs for the last thirty years than ...

Offering more detailed explanatory notes than earlier versions, this edition reprints together for the first time all of Paine's introductions to the versions published in his lifetime. In his own richly informed Introduction, Claeys elucidates the historical context and the subsequent influence of Paine’s text, as well as the major problems in interpreting Paine’s theory. Instructors will find this new edition a worthy counterpoint to the Hackett edition of Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France, edited by J. G. A. (...) Pocock. (shrink)

The debate over the influence of American culture upon Europe and the rest of the world is hardly new. Discussions about the cultural effects of video recorders, satellite broadcasting, cable television and their likely content are only the latest episode in a long-running drama in which the young and aggressive culture of America bludgeons the elderly culture of old Europe (or correspondingly overruns and wipes out the quaint but ill-armed ethnic cultures of the less-developed world, dragging the natives from coconuts (...) to Coca-Cola in a generation of identity crisis). But though there has been much written about some aspects of this issue, and most non-Americans who have come into contact with American culture have some awareness of its dimensions, there is also much which remains unclear, and ill- or misunderstood. In this essay two aspects of this large and complex problem will be examined. Firstly, the problem of how the “Americanisation of world culture” has been understood until now will be outlined, by looking at its background in the mass culture critique of the 19th and 20th centuries, with some current notions of what American culture is, and some accounts of how it has been internationalized. My aim in this first section is in particular to try to isolate “American culture” from commercial and industrial culture more generally, for a conflation of these phenomena is widespread and very misleading. Secondly, a normative argument will be outlined from the premises that a “superculture” is indeed developing and that, though it is less threatening than many suspect, it requires a vital measure of resistance if many valuable elements of human experience are not to be relegated to anthropology museums. The central value which will be defended here, however, is not “Europeanism” or “Americanism”, but rather the central liberal virtue of diversity, of which cultural expression is an extremely important form. My attempt to develop a politics of cultural protectionism, then, represents a wish to surpass simplistic rejections of American culture and to come to terms with the confrontation of culture with industrial society itself. This involves going beyond the traditional discussion of culture in one country, however, and trying to extend the mass culture debate to the international arena, where the present debate on this problem is far more complex but often less sophisticated. (shrink)