In her in-depth study of Harriet Martineau's writings on the evolution of the British Empire in the nineteenth century, Deborah A. Logan elaborates the ways in which Martineau's works reflect Victorian concerns about radically shifting social ideologies. To understand Martineau's interventions into the Empire Question, Logan argues, is to recognize her authority as an insightful political commentator, historian, economist, and sociologist whose eclectic studies and intellectual curiosity positioned her as a shrewd observer and recorder of the imperial enterprise. Logan's primary sources are Martineau's nonfiction works, particularly those published in periodicals, complemented by telling references from Martineau's didactic fiction, correspondence, and autobiography. Key texts include History of The Peace; Letters from Ireland and Endowed Schools of Ireland; Illustrations of Political Economy; Eastern Life, Present and Past; and History of British Rule in India and Suggestions for the Future Rule of India. Logan shows Martineau negotiating the inevitable conflict that arises when the practices of Victorian imperialism are measured against its own stated principles, and especially against Martineau's idea of both the Civilizing Mission and the indigenous cultural integrity often compromised in the process. The picture of Martineau that emerges is complex and fascinating. Both an advocate and a critic of British imperialism, Martineau was a persistent champion of the Civilizing Mission. Written with an awareness that she was recording contemporary history for future generations, Martineau’s commentary on this perpetually fascinating, often tragic, and always instructive chapter in British and world history offers important insights that enhance and complicate our understanding of imperialism and globalization.

One of the foremost writers of her time, Harriet Martineau established her reputation by writing a hugely successful series of fictional tales on political economy whose wide readership included the young Queen Victoria. She went on to write fiction and nonfiction; books, articles and pamphlets; popular travel books and more insightful analyses. Martineau wrote in the middle decades of the nineteenth century, at a time when new disciplines and areas of knowledge were being established. Bringing together scholars of literature, history, economics and sociology, this volume demonstrates the scope of Martineau's writing and its importance to nineteenth-century politics and culture. Reflecting Martineau's prodigious achievements, the essays explore her influence on the emerging fields of sociology, history, education, science, economics, childhood, the status of women, disability studies, journalism, travel writing, life writing and letter writing. As a woman contesting Victorian patriarchal relations, Martineau was controversial in her own lifetime and has still not received the recognition that is due her. This wide-ranging collection confirms her place as one of the leading intellectuals, cultural theorists and commentators of the nineteenth century.

Aside from Letters from Ireland and Endowed Schools of Ireland, Harriet Martineau wrote an additional thirty-eight articles about Ireland for London's Daily News between 1852 and 1866, plus another thirteen articles for Household Words, Atlantic Monthly, Once a Week, Westminster Review, and New York Evening Post. It is those uncollected articles that are the focus of this study and that compliment her earlier work by providing subsequent commentary on Ireland's post-famine, reconstruction period. Whereas Letters from Ireland (1852) is a structured, sociological travel memoir meant for both periodical and volume publication, and Endowed Schools (1858)addresses a specific aspect of Irish education reform, these articles chart the course of economic and social progress in post-famine Ireland in terms of industry, public works, economy, and agriculture. They also record the growth of Irish nationalism in America and Ireland, while exploring the question of Ireland's political representation during this crucial pre-independence period. Points highlighted in this study include Martineau's unshakeable optimism about the economic and social recovery of post-famine Ireland, her steady refusal to consider repeal of the Union as a viable option for remedying Ireland's troubles, and her insistence that Ireland's problems were social, not political. Treating social issues as the primary ailment and politics as merely a symptom, Martineau's writing on these topics provides important insights into the challenges facing Ireland during its transition from a feudal society to a modern, independent nation during the period of the British Empire's greatest expansion and swift demise. There are five components comprising her writing on Ireland: Ireland (Illustrations of Political Economy, 1832); History of the Peace, 1849-51; Letters from Ireland (1852); Endowed Schools of Ireland (1858); and the "Condition of Post-famine Ireland" (1852-66). It is the latter that is the focus of this volume.

"A new economic history which uncovers the forgotten left-wing, anti-imperial, pacifist origins of economic cosmopolitanism and free trade from the mid-nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century. The post-1945 international free-trade regime was established to foster a more integrated, prosperous, and peaceful world. As US Secretary of State Cordell Hull (1933-1944), "Father of the United Nations" and one of the regime's principal architects, explained in his memoirs, "unhampered trade dovetailed with peace; high tariffs, trade barriers, and unfair economic competition, with war." Remarkably, this same economic order is now under assault from the country most involved in its creation: the United States. A global economic nationalist resurgence - heralded by Donald Trump's "America First" protectionism and resultant trade wars with the USA's closest allies and trading partners - now looks to transform over seventy years of regional and global market integration into an illiberal economic order resembling that of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Economic cosmopolitan critics of today's retreat from free trade have offered dire warnings that doing so would be catastrophic for global consumers and an existential threat to regional and world peace. But under what circumstances did this ideological marriage of free trade, prosperity, and peace arise? Who were its main adherents? How did this same free-trade ideology succeed in becoming the new economic orthodoxy following the Second World War? And how might the successes and failures of this earlier struggle to reform the economic order inform today's globalization crisis? In Pax Economica, economic historian Marc-William Palen finds answers amid a century of transnational peace and anti-imperial activism that stretched from Britain's unilateral adoption of free trade in 1846 to the founding of the US-led liberal trading system that arose immediately after the Second World War. Over five thematic chapters, considering the period from different perspectives, and utilising archival research conducted in Europe, North America, and Australia, Palen shows that this politico-ideological struggle to create a more prosperous and peaceful world through free trade pitted economic cosmopolitans against economic nationalists. Cosmopolitans sought to counter the industrialising world's embrace of economic nationalism because they believed - much like today's critics of Trump's tariffs and Brexit - that economic nationalism laid the groundwork for trade wars, high prices for consumers, and geopolitical conflict; while free trade created market interdependence, prosperity, social justice, and a more peaceful world. Pax Economica argues that this cosmopolitan fight for free trade laid foundations for a century of anti-imperial and peace activism across the globe - and paved the way for today's global trade regime now under siege"--

Many women wrote philosophy in nineteenth-century Britain, and they wrote across the full range of philosophical topics. Yet these important women thinkers have been left out of the philosophical canon and many of them are barely known today. The aim of this book is to put them back on the map. It introduces twelve women philosophers - Mary Shepherd, Harriet Martineau, Ada Lovelace, George Eliot, Frances Power Cobbe, Helena Blavatsky, Julia Wedgwood, Victoria Welby, Arabella Buckley, Annie Besant, Vernon Lee, and Constance Naden. Alison Stone looks at their views on naturalism, philosophy of mind, evolution, morality and religion, and progress in history. She shows how these women interacted and developed their philosophical views in conversation with one another, not only with their male contemporaries. The rich print and periodical culture of the period enabled these women to publish philosophy in forms accessible to a general readership, despite the restrictions women faced, such as having limited or no access to university education. Stone explains how these women became excluded from the history of philosophy because there was a cultural shift at the end of the nineteenth century towards specialised forms of philosophical writing, which depended on academic credentials that were still largely unavailable to women.

The idea of utility as a value, goal or principle in political, moral and economic life has a long and rich history. Now available in paperback, The Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Utilitarianism captures the complex history and the multi-faceted character of utilitarianism, making it the first work of its kind to bring together all the various aspects of the tradition for comparative study. With more than 200 entries on the authors and texts recognised as having built the tradition of utilitarian thinking, it covers issues and critics that have arisen at every stage. There are entries on Plato, Epicurus, and Confucius and progenitors of the theory like John Gay and David Hume, together with political economists, legal scholars, historians and commentators. Cross-referenced throughout, each entry consists of an explanation of the topic, a bibliography of works and suggestions for further reading. Providing fresh juxtapositions of issues and arguments in utilitarian studies and written by a team of respected scholars, The Bloomsbury Encyclopedia of Utilitarianism is an authoritative and valuable resource.