On Liberty

Journalist, author and historian Misha Glenny presents his first edition of In Our Time, succeeding Melvyn Bragg who retired from this role last summer. Misha and his guests discuss the landmark work On Liberty by John Stuart Mill, published in 1859 and the increasing recognition for his wife Harriet Taylor Mill's contribution. The subject matter of the essay is ‘civil or social liberty: the nature and limits of the power which can be legitimately exercised by society over the individual’ and it argues that the sole end for which mankind may interfere with the liberty of action of anyone is self-protection and even then only to prevent harm to others. This essay became enormously popular and a foundational text for liberalism.

With

Helen McCabe

Professor of Political Theory at the University of Nottingham

Mark Philp

Emeritus Professor of History and Politics at the University of Warwick

And

Piers Norris Turner

Associate Professor of Philosophy at The Ohio State University

Producer: Simon Tillotson

Reading list:

Jo Ellen Jacobs (ed.), Harriet Taylor Mill, Complete Works (Indiana University Press, 1998)