Professor Georgios Varouxakis

My research interests include:

• History of nationalism and political thought on nationalism, internationalism, patriotism, and cosmopolitanism
• Intellectual history of ideas of ‘the West’
• Intellectual history of ideas of ‘Europe’ and attitudes towards the EEC/EU
• Intellectual history of ideas of ‘the South’
• Political thought on empire and imperialism
• History of international political thought/political thought on international relations
• History of political thought, 19th-21st centuries (transcultural, transnational, French-speaking, British, German-speaking, American, Greek.

Recent research funding:

• Senior Research Fellowship at Lichtenberg-Kolleg, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen (1st October 2017 – 31st July 2018). Title of project: “The West: The History of an Idea”.
• Senior Research Fellow at Lichtenberg-Kolleg, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen (second Fellowship, 1st October 2020 – 31st July 2021). Title of project: “The West: The History of an Idea”.

Books

Single-authored monographs

1. The West: The History of an Idea (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2025
2. Liberty Abroad: J. S. Mill on International Relations (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2013 -- “Ideas in Context” Series)
3. Victorian Political Thought on France and the French (Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2002)
4. Mill on Nationality (London and New York: Routledge, 2002 –Routledge/PSA “Political Studies” Series).

Co-authored books

1. Contemporary France: An Introduction to French Politics and Society, co-authored with David Howarth (London: Arnold, 2003)
2. Αλληλεγγύη: δοκιμές [(in Greek): Solidarity: trials], co-authored with Gregoris Molivas (Athens: Nisos, 2016)

Co-edited books

1. Utilitarianism and Empire, co-edited with Bart Schultz (Lanham, ML: Lexington Books, 2005)
2. John Stuart Mill: Thought and Influence – The saint of rationalism, co-edited with Paul Kelly (London and New York: Routledge, 2010)
3. Happiness and Utility: Essays Presented to Frederick Rosen, edited by Georgios Varouxakis and Mark Philp (London: UCL Press, 2019). 

Guest-edited Journal Special Issue

1. Patriotism and Nationhood in Nineteenth-Century European Political Thought, Special Issue (guest-edited by Georgios Varouxakis) of the European Journal of Political Theory, Vol. 5, No. 1 (2006). ‘Introduction: Patriotism and Nationhood in 19th-Century European Political Thought’, pp. 7-11, written by Georgios Varouxakis.

Articles (selection):

• ‘When did Britain join the Occident? On the origins of the idea of “the West” in English’, History of European Ideas, Vol. 46, No. 5 (2020), pp. 563-581.
• ‘The Godfather of “Occidentality”: Auguste Comte and the Idea of “the West”’, Modern Intellectual History [31 pp.], forthcoming -- published online [First View]: 11 October 2017: http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S1479244317000415.
• ‘“Negrophilist” Crusader: John Stuart Mill on the American Civil War and Reconstruction’, History of European Ideas, Vol. 39, No. 5 (2013), 729-754.
• ‘“Patriotism”, “Cosmopolitanism” and “Humanity” in Victorian Political Thought’, European Journal of Political Theory, 5/1 (2006), 100-118.
• 'Guizot’s Historical Works and J. S. Mill’s Reception of Tocqueville’, History of Political Thought, Vol. 20, No. 2 (1999), 292-312.
• ‘John Stuart Mill on Intervention and Non-Intervention’, Millennium: Journal of International Studies, Vol. 26, No. 1 (1997), 57-76.
• ‘National Character in John Stuart Mill’s Thought’, History of European Ideas, Vol. 24, No. 6 (1998), pp. 375-91.
• ‘The Public Moralist versus Ethnocentrism: John Stuart Mill’s French Enterprise’, European Review of History, Vol. 3, No. 1 (1996), pp. 27-38.
• ‘John Stuart Mill on Race’, Utilitas, Vol. 10, No. 1 (1998), pp. 17-32.
• ‘French radicalism through the eyes of John Stuart Mill’, History of European Ideas, Vol. 30 (2004), pp. 433-61.
• ‘A Certain Idea of Greece: Perceptions of the Past and European Integration’, Synthesis: Review of Modern Greek Studies, Vol. 2, No. 1 (1997), pp. 32-42.
• ‘1848 and British Political Thought on “The Principle of Nationality”’, in: Douglas Moggach and Gareth Stedman Jones (eds), The 1848 Revolutions and European Political Thought (Cambridge: CUP, 2018), pp. 140-161.
• ‘Mid-Atlantic Musings: The “Question of Europe” in British Intellectual Debates, 1961-2008’, in: Justine Lacroix and Kalypso Nicolaïdis (eds), European Stories: Intellectual Debates on Europe in National Contexts (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), pp. 147-166.
  
• ‘“Great” versus “Small” Nations: Size and “National Greatness” in Victorian Political Thought’, in Duncan Bell (ed.), Victorian Visions of Global Order: Empire and International Relations in Nineteenth-Century Political Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), pp. 136-158.
• ‘The Idea of “Europe” in Nineteenth-Century Greek Political Thought’, in: Philip Carabott (ed.), Greece and Europe: Aspects of a Troubled Relationship (London: Centre for Hellenic Studies, King’s College London, 1995), pp. 16-37.
  
• ‘Is the Forgetting of history a prerequisite for the emergence of a European “imagined community”?’, in: B. Axford, D. Berghahn and N. Hewlett (eds), Unity and Diversity in the New Europe (Oxford: Peter Lang, 2000), pp. 27-39.
• ‘Cosmopolitan patriotism in J. S. Mill’s Political Thought and Activism’, in Nadia Urbinati and Alex Zakaras (eds), J. S. Mill’s Political Thought: A Bicentennial Reassessment (Cambridge: CUP, 2007), pp. 277-297.
• ‘Uncelebrated Trouble Maker: John Stuart Mill as English Radicalism’s Foreign Politics Gadfly’, in: K. N. Demetriou and A. Loizides (eds), John Stuart Mill: A British Socrates (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 126-53.
• ‘“Φαντασιακές Κοινὀτητες και Μεγάλη Ιδέα: Μια Συμβολή του Ν. Γ. Πολίτη’ [in Greek: ‘“Imagines Communities” and the Great Idea: A Contribution by N. G. Polités’], Μνήμων, Vol. 13 (1991), pp. 197-213.
• ‘Ωφελιμισμός και διεθνείς σχέσεις: Η περί διεθνών σχέσεων ηθική των κλασικών ωφελιμιστών’ [in Greek: ‘Utilitarianism and international relations: the international ethics of classical utilitarians’], Υπόμνημα στη Φιλοσοφία, Vol. 3 (2005), pp. 199-216.
• ‘The international political thought of John Stuart Mill’, in: Ian Hall and Lisa Hill (eds), British International Thinkers from Hobbes to Namier (Basingstoke and New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), pp. 117-136.
• ‘Empire, race, Euro-centrism: John Stuart Mill and his critics’, in: B. Schultz and G. Varouxakis (eds), Utilitarianism and Empire (Lanham, ML: Lexington Books), 2005, pp. 137-54.
• ‘Milestones of Western Political Thought on Democracy’, in: Knud Erik Jørgensen (ed.), European Democracy: Foundations, Milestones, Future Perspectives (Copenhagen: Ministry of Foreign Affairs, 2009), pp. 33-47.
• ‘Introduction’ (co-authored), in: B. Schultz and G. Varouxakis (eds), Utilitarianism and Empire (Lanham, ML: Lexington Books, 2005), pp. 1-32.
• ‘Introduction: John Stuart Mill – A Timely Reappraisal’ (co-authored), in: Georgios Varouxakis and Paul Kelly (eds), John Stuart Mill: Thought and Influence – The Saint of Rationalism (London and New York: Routledge, 2010), pp. 1-18.
• ‘State and Individual in Political Thought’, in: Gregory Claeys (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to Nineteenth-Century Thought (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019), pp. 8-30.
• ‘Mill on democracy revisited’, in: Christopher Macleod and Dale E. Miller (eds), A Companion to Mill (Oxford: Wiley Blackwell, 2017), pp. 454-471.
• ‘Cosmopolitanism and Internationalism in Modern British Political Thought: Continuities and Discontinuities’, in: Dina Gusejnova (ed.), Cosmopolitanism in Conflict: Imperial Encounters from the Seven Years’ War to the Cold War (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018), pp. 147-178.
• 'Introduction: Happiness, Utility and the Republic of Letters’, co-authored with Mark Philp, in: Happiness and Utility: Essays Presented to Frederick Rosen, (London: UCL Press, 2019), pp. 1-19.

Shorter articles and encyclopaedia entries

• ‘Blanc, (Jean Joseph) Louis’, in: Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, Oxford University Press, 2005.
• Eight articles-entries in: Gregory Claeys (ed.), Encyclopedia of Nineteenth-Century Thought (London and New York: Routledge), 2005:
o ‘Walter Bagehot’, pp. 28-31.
o ‘Rabindranath Tagore’, pp. 465-6.
o ‘Jules Michelet’, p. 333.
o ‘Louis Adolphe Thiers’, pp. 484-5.
o ‘Victor Hugo’, pp. 202-203.
o ‘Pierre Paul Royer-Collard’, p. 410.
o ‘Félicité de Lamennais’, pp. 269-70
o ‘Ernest Renan’, pp. 399-401.
• Five articles-entries in: A. S. Leoussi (ed.), Encyclopaedia of Nationalism (New Brunswick and London: Transaction Publishers, 2001):
o ‘Patriotism’, pp. 239-42.
o ‘The “Imagined Communities” Theory of Nationalism’ (co-authored), pp.136-9.
o ‘Mill’s Theory of Nationality and Nationalism’, pp. 178-82.
o ‘Citizenship and Nationality’ (co-authored), pp. 21-5
o ‘Nationality’, pp. 232-4.
• ‘Benjamin Constant’, in: Gregory Claeys (ed.), Encyclopedia of Modern Political Thought (CQ Press, 2013), Vol. I, pp. 185-186.
• The discreet charm of “Southernness”’, Journal of Modern Italian Studies, Vol. 17, No. 5 (2012) [Special Issue: Nationality before liberty? Risorgimento Political Thought in Transnational Context], pp. 547-550.
• ‘Η Ηχώ της Μασσαλιώτιδας στη Βαλκανική’ [in Greek: ‘The Echo of the “Marseillaise” in the Balkans’] (review article), Histōr, Vol. 6 (1993), pp. 155-160.
• ‘How cosmopolitan can patriotism be?’, The ASEN Bulletin, No 16 (1999), pp. 3-7.

Current PhD supervisees:

• Atlanta Neudorf (‘Temporality and Revolution in Exile: The Political Thought of Félix Pyat, 1849-1871’)
• Thomas Musgrove (‘British and Imperial Perspectives on the Balkans, 1856-1914’)
• Fergus Cullen (‘The Conservative Revolution in Britain? Modernist Conservatisms, 1900–1939’)
• Tristan Grove (‘Reason, sovereignty and representative government in nineteenth-century political thought’).

Before the above-named current PhD researchers, I have supervised or co-supervised six PhD candidates to successful completion. I have also been the second supervisor to more than a dozen PhD researchers.

I welcome applications from candidates wishing to undertake doctoral research in areas including the following:

• Intellectual history of ideas of ‘the West’
• Intellectual history of ideas of ‘Europe’ (C.18th-21st) and attitudes towards the EEC/EU
• History of Francophilia and Francophobia
• French and French-speaking, British, American, German-speaking or modern Greek and transnational political thought/intellectual history, C.19th–20th
• Intellectual history of African-American or/and Francophone African or Caribbean attitudes towards ‘Western Civilization’, Afrocentrism, and Pan-Africanism
• History of international political thought/political thought on international relations.
• Political thought on empire and imperialism.
• Political thought on nationalism, internationalism, patriotism, or cosmopolitanism
• History of mutual perceptions or cultural/intellectual transfers between and across cultural, national or linguistic groups, C.19th-20th
• History of historiography
• History or social/cultural anthropology.