James Mill prefers to take a theoretic approach to social subjects rather than the more empirical one common in his time.

In his influential History of British India, published in 1818, he describes the acquisition of the Indian Empire by England and later the United Kingdom.

He also brings political theory to bear on the delineation of the Hindu civilization, and subjects the conduct of the actors in the successive stages of the conquest and administration of India to severe criticism.

The book obtains a great and immediate success, and will bring about a change in the author's fortunes: in the following year, Mill will be appointed an official in the India House, in the important department of the examiner of Indian correspondence.

The book itself, and the author's official connection with India for the last seventeen years of his life, effects a complete change in the whole system of governance in the country.

Mill never visits the Indian colony, relying solely on documentary material and archival records in compiling his work.

Mill and Bentham inspire the Philosophical Radicals, a term used to designate a philosophically-minded group of English political radicals whose early members include David Ricardo and jurist John Austin, among other journalists and intellectuals, and are dedicated to economic and social reform along the utilitarian program developed by Bentham.