Global Spencerism: The Communication and Appropriation of a British Evolutionist.

• Author: Mingardi, Alberto

Global Spencerism: The Communication and Appropriation of a British Evolutionist

Bernard Lightman, editor

Boston: Brill, 2015, 310 pp.

It may be hard to believe, but interest in the philosophy of Herbert Spencer (1820-1903) was once a genuine global phenomenon. In his lifetime, Spencer was a world-famous figure and, accordingly, left an important mark on the philosophical, sociological, and political culture of many countries.

Edited by distinguished historian Bernard Lightman, Global Spencerism brings that history of "Spencerism" back to life, collecting essays that aim to prove Herbert Spencer's relevance well beyond the boundaries of Victorian England. The book is necessarily pedagogic, as its primary purpose is to chart the travels of Spencer's thought and works.

Chapters are filled with bibliographical references so that the reader can easily figure out what works of Spencer were available in Russia, China, Japan, Egypt, Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Italy, France, and the Scandinavian countries. Translating Spencer was always difficult, but that is not the only regularity about Spencerism we can spot in different countries. As Dawson and Radick point out in their afterword, "in studies of Darwin's reception one usually finds stories that begin with opposing parties for and against, but that end in some form of accommodation." In the case of Spencer, however, all stories end in his irrelevance, most of them after a roller coaster--waves of appreciation followed by waves of rather calumnious judgments. Nonetheless, all these stories have more in common than the ultimate oblivion of their subject matter. In particular, they tend to reflect how enthusiasm for Spencer sprang at the crossroads of positivism, evolution, and liberty. The commitment to a scientific education, the appreciation of the division of labor, the debunking of the rhetoric of colonialism: what today seems idiosyncratic to many, perfectly fit not only into Spencer's thought, but also into the ideas of his contemporaries.

The contributors are far more concerned with positivism and evolution than they are with liberty. And yet by reading them one can clearly sense how these three subjects were really intertwined, so much so that, in the case of Japan for example, translating and "appropriating" Spencer was basically conceived as a shortcut to import the values of the Enlightenment.

Spencerism's fortunes often depended on the spread of a more diffused, and indeed more...