Utilitarianism And Empire

These 11 articles represent the present thinking about whether utilitarianism informed colonialism in such topics as Bentham's thought on slavery and the slave trade, James Mill's approach to empire in The History of British India, John Stuart Mill's notions of happiness and how they fit in domination, Thomas Carlyle's and the latter Mill's take on race, John Stuart Mill's critics and his active participation in colonial authority, the state of the argument about the early utilitarians' concepts of race and empire, the emergence of imaginary Darwinism, and Sidgwick's slide into racism. Annotation c2006 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Bart Schultz is Fellow and Lecturer in the Humanities Division and Humanities Collegiate Division, and Special Programs Coordinator in the Graham School of General Studies, at the University of Chicago. He is also the winner of the Jacques Barzun Prize in Cultural History, in recognition of his book Henry Sidgwick - The Eye of the Universe: An Intellectual Biography (Cambridge University Press, 2004). Georgios Varouxakis is Senior Lecturer in the History Department of Queen Mary, University of London.