Victorian Political Thought on France and the French - Paperback

by G. Varouxakis (Author)

By scrutinizing the major Victorian political thinkers' perceptions and representations of France this book shows how comparisons with the country on the other side of the Channel, its politics, civilization, and the French 'national character' contributed to nineteenth-century Britain's self-definition. While the utterances on France of several other figures are also examined, the main focus is on Walter Bagehot, John Stuart Mill, Matthew Arnold, Lord Acton, Thomas Carlyle, Nassau William Senior, James Fitzjames Stephen, William Rathbone Greg, Thomas Babington Macaulay, John Morley, and Frederic Harrison.

Author Biography

Georgios Varouxakis is Reader in the Department of History, Queen Mary, University of London, UK. He is the author of Mill on Nationality (Routledge, 2002) and the co-editor of Utilitarianism and Empire (Lexington Books, 2005) and of John Stuart Mill - Thought and Influence: The Saint of Rationalism (Routledge, 2010). He has also published many articles on various topics in the history of political thought and intellectual history (British and French) in the 19th and 20th centuries.