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Mark Francis and Michael W. Taylor (eds.), Herbert Spencer: Legacies . Abingdon : Routledge , 2015. Pp. 284. ISBN 978-1-84465-4 . £65.00 (hardback).
Book Reviews
That the one-word subtitle of this volume of excellent essays on the nineteenth-century evolutionist is a plural is not without significance. Herbert Spencer's influence has persisted in a multiplicity of different disciplines - psychology, sociology and political and educational theory most notably - and these various legacies are not all mutually compatible, with different elements of his voluminous writings having been adopted and appropriated by socialists as much as by libertarians. Nor do the contributors to this volume all agree on the precise nature of Spencer's thought and its subsequent influences, with, for instance, Mark Francis, one of the editors, making clear his disagreement with the argument of Peter Bowler's chapter that Spencer was a Lamarckian. In fact, Francis, in his introduction, observes, 'It is my belief that differing opinions of Spencer are to be encouraged on the grounds that I, like Spencer, am a liberal and see debate as both healthy and possibly contributing to the advancement of knowledge' (p. 10). In this respect, this self-consciously conflicting collection of essays on the globally influential thinker whom Michael W. Taylor has called the 'world philosopher of the late nineteenth century' and the 'first international...