British idealist engagements with Mazzini’s life and writings, 1858-1929

What is it about?

Section one introduces the topic. Section two sketches a background for the analysis, highlighting Mazzini’s place within the milieu of European exiles living in Britain from the 1840s to the 1870s, ultimately focusing on Mazzini’s engagements at Oxford. Section three explores the ways in which, despite areas of agreement, ultimately the Weltanschauung of the foundational figure in British idealist social and political thought and practice, Thomas Hill Green, differed fundamentally from that of Mazzini. Section four argues that despite these fundamental philosophical differences, Green’s practical political theory drew directly on Mazzini’s writings, although differing over the crucial issue of the proper role of the state in the republic. From this basis, section five analyses the engagements with Mazzini’s writings by the next generation of British idealists, especially John MacCunn. The analysis concludes that although in 1881 Toynbee had reasonable grounds for characterising Mazzini as ‘the true teacher of our age,’ this claim became increasingly unsustainable from the late 1880s onwards, as evolutionary theory came to ground British idealist political thought.

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