Synopsis
A scholarly study tracing how leading nineteenth-century liberal thinkers shifted from skepticism toward an active embrace of European empire.
Core passage idea
Paraphrase · Modern copyrighted workLiberalism did not simply oppose empire; major liberal thinkers built justifications for imperial rule into their accounts of progress and civilization.
It exposes a tension at liberalism's core, showing how ideals of liberty coexisted with the defense of conquest and tutelage over others.
To avoid a bubble
Pair with Uday Singh Mehta, Liberalism and Empire.
Reading note
Read it as careful intellectual history that closely reconstructs Bentham, Mill, and Tocqueville rather than as polemic.
Best paired with
Uday Singh Mehta, Liberalism and Empire