ABSTRACT
John Stuart Mill is arguably the most influential major liberal theorist to have engaged directly and thoroughly with the issues raised for liberalism and liberal politics by nationhood and nationalism.1 It is hard to overestimate the younger Mill’s significance for – and influence on – the British liberal tradition and liberalism more generally. From the time he had Chapter V of L.T. Hobhouse’s Liberalism (1911) dedicated to himself and Gladstone (as the twin pillars of British liberalism in the world of thought and in the world of action respectively) until today, he has been considered a pivotal figure of liberalism, both as a political philosophy and as an ideology.2 As far as his native land was concerned, Mill gradually became, “[f]rom dangerous partisan,” extreme radical and “un-English,” a really “national possession,” an epitome of liberal Englishness.3
