‘Beyond the facts’: how a US sociologist made John Stuart Mill into a Neo-Malthusian

Stack, D. (2018) ‘Beyond the facts’: how a US sociologist made John Stuart Mill into a Neo-Malthusian. Historical Research, 91 (154). pp. 772-790. ISSN 1468-2281 doi: 10.1111/1468-2281.12246

Abstract/Summary

This article explores the roots of the characterization of John Stuart Mill as a ‘Neo‐Malthusian’. Making extensive use of the Norman E. Himes Papers, held at the Countway Library of Medicine, it shows that Himes, a U.S. sociologist and committed birth control campaigner in the inter‐war period, framed a characterization of Mill that endures to this day. The article demonstrates how and why Himes repeatedly took his arguments ‘beyond the facts’, partly in response to a dispute with the British birth control campaigner Marie Stopes, and established the practice of referring to Mill as a ‘Neo‐Malthusian’. The article concludes by arguing that the term impedes more than it aids our understanding and Mill scholars would benefit from stripping away decades of accreted interpretation.

Item Type	Article
URI	https://reading-clone.eprints-hosting.org/id/eprint/68749
Identification Number/DOI	10.1111/1468-2281.12246
Refereed	Yes
Divisions	Arts, Humanities and Social Science > School of Humanities > History
Publisher	Wiley-Blackwell
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