Review: On Liberty and Liberalism: The Case of John Stuart Mill by Gertrude Himmelfarb

Rothblatt, Sheldon. Victorian Studies 20, no. 1. 1976.

Abstract:

IN THE LAST TWO YEARS AT LEAST THREE major books on John Stuart Mill have appeared, not to mention the annual outpour- ing of essays and articles on this or that aspect of his life and thought. This outsizeman, from an age that had or believed in outsize men, is always alive. If we are interested in psychohistory, we can turn to the Autobiography, if in liberalism, for or against, or in ideology, then to Mill we go. If it is the relationship between an educated elite and the working classes or democracy that concerns us – once again Mill. Or suppose it is the basis of ethical thought in an industrial society: Mill, of course. Freedom of speech or even action, the women’s question? John Stuart Mill. Whatever the present interest, Mill is certain to be brought into it. He has his admirers: they vary according to generations and vogues. But since no one can tolerate a giant for too long, he also has detractors and like the corn kings of old must from time to time die, to be reborn in new scholarship.