Benjamin Kidd
Portrait of a Social Darwinist

This is an intellectual biography of Benjamin Kidd, a leading Social Darwinist in the years before World War I.

D. P. Crook (Author)

9780521107358, Cambridge University Press

Paperback / softback, published 2 April 2009

472 pages
21.6 x 14 x 2.7 cm, 0.6 kg

This is an intellectual biography of Benjamin Kidd, a leading Social Darwinist in the years before World War I, and a social prophet in the tradition of Comte and Spencer. His first book Social Evolution, published in 1894, was an immediate and enormous success around the world. In it, Kidd developed a collectivist form of Social Darwinism in tune with the values of Progressivism in America and the 'new liberalism' in Britain. By many it was regarded as the basis for a properly scientific sociology, and the combination of its claims to scientific methodology, with an emphasis on non-rational forces as the agents of progress accurately caught the temper of its times. Launched on his career as a writer, Kidd's subsequent books and journalism continued to exercise extraordinary influence. His 'social imperialism', linking a bio-political defence of empire with a programme of social reform, won currency in the Anglo-American world at a time of expansionary fervour.

1. Social evolution
2. The control of the tropics
3. Principles of western civilization
4. Tariff reform
5. Individualism and after
6. The science of power.

Subject Areas: Sociology & anthropology [JH]