The first study of how Genevan Etienne Dumont, and his traumatic experience of the French Revolution, shaped the reception and presentation of 'Benthamism' and masked the true face of Jeremy Bentham, one of the architects of modern society who visualised a new world based on the values of transparency, accountability, and economy.

This first comprehensive account of the utilitarians' historical thought intellectually resituates their conceptions of philosophy and politics, at a time when the past acquired new significances as both a means and object of study. Drawing on published and unpublished writings - and set against the intellectual backdrops of Scottish philosophical history, German and French historicism, romanticism, positivism, and the rise of social science and scientific history - Callum Barrell recovers the depth with which Jeremy Bentham, James Mill, George Grote, and John Stuart Mill thought about history as a site of philosophy and politics. He argues that the utilitarians, contrary to their reputations as ahistorical and even antihistorical thinkers, developed complex frameworks in which to learn from and negotiate the past, inviting us to rethink the foundations of their ideas, as well as their place in - and relationship to - nineteenth-century philosophy and political thought.

Jeremy Bentham, the founder of classical utilitarianism, was a seminal figure in the history of modern political thought. This lively monograph presents the numerous French connections of an emblematic British thinker. Perhaps more than any other intellectual of his time, Bentham engaged with contemporary events and people in France, even writing in French in the 1780s. Placing Bentham's thought in the context of the French-language Enlightenment through to the post-Revolutionary era, Emmanuelle de Champs makes the case for a historical study of 'Global Bentham'. Examining previously unpublished sources, she traces the circulation of Bentham's letters, friends, manuscripts, and books in the French-speaking world. This study in transnational intellectual history reveals how utilitarianism, as a doctrine, was both the product of, and a contribution to, French-language political thought at a key time in European history. The debates surrounding utilitarianism in France cast new light on the making of modern Liberalism.

Long known solely as fascism’s precursor, Joseph de Maistre (1753-1821) re-emerges in this volume as a versatile thinker with a colossally diverse posterity whose continuing relevance in Europe is ensured by his theorization of the encounter between tradition and modernity.

The years between the American Revolution of 1776, the French Revolution of 1789 and the European Revolutions of 1848 saw fundamental shifts from autocracy to emerging democracy. It is a vital period in what may be termed 'modernity': that is of the western societies that are increasingly industrial, capitalist and liberal democratic. Unsurprisingly, these years of stress and transition produced some significant reflections on politics and society. This indispensable introductory text considers how a cluster of key thinkers viewed the global political upheavals and social changes of their time, covering the work of: - Edmund Burke - Georg Hegel - Thomas Paine - Alexis de Tocqueville - Jeremy Bentham - Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels Lively and approachable, it is essential reading for anyone with an interest in modern history, political history or political thought.

This collection of essays explores an unjustly neglected tradition that is now experiencing a remarkable renaissance: French political liberalism.

Many important economic and political debates today refer to the nature and the role of the State: should governments intervene in the economy and interfere with the operation of markets? In which occasions, and how? In order to better understand these questions and the controversies they have raised, this book re-considers the debates crucial for the issues at stake, the most important schools of thought, and the central concepts in an historical perspective. After a tribute to Sir Alan Peacock and the first publication of two hitherto unpublished papers written in the 1950s, the chapters focus on important developments that occurred in Europe during the 19th and early 20th centuries. The final part includes contributions on public economics after World War II, focusing on concepts such as merit goods, externalities and the “Coase theorem”. This book was originally published as a special issue of The European Journal of the History of Economic Thought.