Historian Cor Hermans has written a fascinating and highly readable, though rather sizeable, book on social Darwinian thought as it developed from the second half of the nineteenth century onward, mainly under the influence of the work of Darwin himself.

All this implies that … the so-called classical liberals, who nowadays call themselves neo-liberals or libertarians, claim Mill’s ideas and contend they follow in his footsteps. The Dutch historian Cor Hermans modifies this image thoroughly in his highly readable book Een Engelsman in Frankrijk …. In it he doesn’t deny that the famous philosopher played an important role in the history of European liberalism, but he demonstrates … that [Mill] was also influenced, and substantially so, by the Romantic Movement, socialism, and positivism.