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Secondary sourceSpeech1910

Six Radical Thinkers: Bentham, Mill, Cobden, Carlyle, Mazzini, Green

John MacCunn · 1910

A LibriVox audio reading of John MacCunn's 1910 book on six radical thinkers, opening with a chapter on Bentham and his philosophy of reform. The voice is a modern volunteer's, not Bentham's.

This audio recording of a later study includes a chapter on Bentham, so it shows how his ideas were interpreted after his death.

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John MacCunn, Six Radical Thinkers, 1910. LibriVox audio reading by Pamela Nagami (volunteer).

About this source

What it is

This is an audio recording of the book Six Radical Thinkers by John MacCunn, published in London in 1910. The recording is a LibriVox volunteer reading, released into the public domain, and it is not Bentham's own voice. The first chapter, 'Bentham and his Philosophy of Reform', discusses his ideas and quotes his words about being a good citizen.

Why it matters

MacCunn's book is a later study that places Bentham beside John Stuart Mill, Richard Cobden, Thomas Carlyle, Giuseppe Mazzini and T. H. Green. It shows how writers of the early 1900s judged the reform movements of the 1800s, so it reveals later views of radicalism as much as Bentham's own.

Look closer

  • Why might a book from 1910 describe Bentham differently than his own writings did?
  • What does a volunteer reader change about how the text reaches a listener?
  • Which of the six thinkers would you expect to be most different from Bentham, and why?

This speech is part of the curated material that grounds the AI version of Jeremy Bentham on Humy.ai — when students ask about related events, the AI can quote it and cite it.

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