Essays on French History and Historians

though mill is properly celebrated as a political philosopher, logician, and economist, throughout his work one finds evidence of an intense interest in history. Indeed his first childhood writings, prompted by his father’s History of British India, which was composed at the table across which the child worked at his lessons, were histories of India, Rome, and Holland. He never wrote a history in his adult years, but rather occupied himself with the philosophy of history and with the implications of that philosophy for social theory and practical politics. While he took great interest in British and classical history (see especially Volumes VI and XI of the Collected Works), his principal concentration was on French history, particularly in its social and political manifestations. Rich evidence of his fascination with French affairs is to be found throughout his works, especially in his newspaper writings and letters, as well as in the details of his life, from his boyhood visit to Pompignan and Montpellier in 1820–21 to his death in Avignon in 1873.