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| EST. READ TIME 2 MIN.New book explores key ideas of John Stuart Mill, an early champion of women’s rights
The Essential John Stuart Mill
The Essential John Stuart Mill includes a new book, accompanying website and animated videos, which spotlight the famed 19th century English philosopher and economist.
Published by the Fraser Institute, the book (authored by Sandra J. Peart, dean and E. Claiborne Robins distinguished professor in Leadership Studies at the University of Richmond) provides an overview of Mill’s key insights on liberty, individualism, religious toleration and women’s rights.
Born in England in 1806, Mill was educated by his father (noted scholar James Mill) and famed philosopher Jeremy Bentham. By the age of three, he could read Greek. By age eight, he was reading Latin.
For much of his adult life, he worked for the East India Company, eventually becoming its chief examiner. In 1859, Mill published one of his most influential books On Liberty, which advocated for choice and liberty of thought and association.
He’d go on to write other influential works including Considerations on Representative Government (1861), Utilitarianism (1863) and The Subjection of Women (1869), which argued for equality among the sexes. Mill was heavily influenced by his late wife Harriet Taylor, a philosopher and women's rights advocate.
Mill later served as a Member of Parliament in Britain where he was known as a reformer who fought against government paternalism.
Considered one of the greatest English-speaking philosophers and political economists of all time, Mill died in Avignon, France in 1873.
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Sandra J. Peart
Dean, E. Claiborne Robins Distinguished Professorship in Leadership Studies, University of RichmondSandra J. Peart, Ph.D., Senior Fellow at the Fraser Institute, became the fourth dean of the Jepson School of LeadershipStudies in August 2007. In 2018, she was appointed to the E. Claiborne Robins Distinguished Professorship in Leadership Studies. She is past president of the International Adam Smith Society and the History of Economics Society and has written or edited ten books, including most recently, Towards an Economics of Natural Equals: A Documentary History of the Early Virginia School of Political Economy, from Cambridge University Press (2020). She is the author of more than 100 articles in the areas of constitutional political economy, leadership in experimental settings, ethics and economics, and the transition to modern economic thought. Her popular articles on leadership, ethics, higher education, and economic themes have appeared in The New York Times, The Chronicle of Higher Education, USA Today, and the Washington Post.Peart’s research focuses on the role and responsibilities of experts in society. She examines these questions as a historian of economic thought with a particular interest in the economics of Adam Smith and John Stuart Mill.Peart obtained her doctorate in economics from the University of Toronto. She is an elected member of the Mont Pelerin Society, the Royal Society for the Encouragement of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce, and the Reform Club.… Read more