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The Autobiography of John Stuart Mill

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The Autobiography of John Stuart Mill

By: John Stuart Mill
Narrated by: Noah Waterman
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About this listen

 Mill's autobiography deals primarily with the life of the mind - but it is a mind which ranks as one of the most remarkable and significant of the nineteenth century. The book memorably depicts the emergence of a brilliant child prodigy, the product of an extraordinary education which both hastened his development and brought him to the brink of suicide by the age of 21. Illumined with equal clarity is the story of John Stuart Mill's renewed commitment to life, and of the further conflicts which marked his long evolution toward maturity as a major philosopher and social thinker.

Superb in its dispassionate objectivity, the Autobiography stands as a work of enduring relevance and a final testament to a rare and luminous intelligence.

Public Domain (P)1996 Blackstone Audio, Inc. Historical Philosophers Politicians Politics & Activism Professionals & Academics
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It is amazing to me that this wasn't proofed properly. There are a few little elisions that skip over small amounts of the text, which for the most part are forgivable little annoyances. But one of them skips over Mill's description of what got him out of his depression, which is probably the most important biographical moment in the entire book. It skips so much of this passage that the listener has no idea whatsoever what triggered his recovery and no specific reference is made to what it was again in the text.

It's a shame, because the only other fault with this book is the pronunciation of Edinburgh as 'Ed-in-burg' rather than 'Ed-in-bruh', which again is just a little bit annoying at first but really gets your goat when the 'Edinburgh Review' is mentioned frequently in later chapters. The narrator is clearly North American so you can't fault him for not knowing how to pronounce the UK's weird place names, but when it's in the name of the main organ that Mill published his work in you do wonder why no one took the time to even check how it should be pronounced.

I'd urge you to get another edition of this.

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