Volume 22, Number 9 · May 29, 1975
The Family Mill
By Alan Ryan
James and John Stuart Mill: Father and Son in the Nineteenth Century
by Bruce Mazlish
Basic Books, 484 pp., $16.95
James and John Stuart Mill is a deeply flawed work. It is careless, naïve, and sentimental, relying on breathlessness of manner to disguise slackness of argument. Although its obsessive inquiries into the inner lives of the Mills yield some interesting insights into the personalities behind their intellectual and political achievements, it leaves those achievements looking very much as they always have. But the overambition that gets Professor Mazlish into difficulties also does something to save him; he is often irritating, but always interesting.
Review, 3615 words
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