Edmund Burke

Edmund Burke
Author: Jesse Norman
Publisher: Basic Books
Total Pages: 338
Release: 2013-05-21
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0465044948

A provocative biography of Edmund Burke, the underappreciated founder of modern conservatism Edmund Burke is both the greatest and the most underrated political thinker of the past three hundred years. A brilliant 18th-century Irish philosopher and statesman, Burke was a fierce champion of human rights and the Anglo-American constitutional tradition, and a lifelong campaigner against arbitrary power. Once revered by an array of great Americans including Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, Burke has been almost forgotten in recent years. But as politician and political philosopher Jesse Norman argues in this penetrating biography, we cannot understand modern politics without him. As Norman reveals, Burke was often ahead of his time, anticipating the abolition of slavery and arguing for free markets, equality for Catholics in Ireland, responsible government in India, and more. He was not always popular in his own lifetime, but his ideas about power, community, and civic virtue have endured long past his death. Indeed, Burke engaged with many of the same issues politicians face today, including the rise of ideological extremism, the loss of social cohesion, the dangers of the corporate state, and the effects of revolution on societies. He offers us now a compelling critique of liberal individualism, and a vision of society based not on a self-interested agreement among individuals, but rather on an enduring covenant between generations. Burke won admirers in the American colonies for recognizing their fierce spirit of liberty and for speaking out against British oppression, but his greatest triumph was seeing through the utopian aura of the French Revolution. In repudiating that revolution, Burke laid the basis for much of the robust conservative ideology that remains with us to this day: one that is adaptable and forward-thinking, but also mindful of the debt we owe to past generations and our duty to preserve and uphold the institutions we have inherited. He is the first conservative. A rich, accessible, and provocative biography, Edmund Burke describes Burke's life and achievements alongside his momentous legacy, showing how Burke's analytical mind and deep capacity for empathy made him such a vital thinker-both for his own age, and for ours.thread on pub day of what people at basic like about it (editors) "You won't find a more impressive political philosopher than the 18th-century MP who more or less invented Anglosphere conservatism. And you won't find a pithier, more readable treatise on his life and works than this one." --Wall Street Journal

The Intellectual Life of Edmund Burke

The Intellectual Life of Edmund Burke
Author: David Bromwich
Publisher: Harvard University Press
Total Pages: 513
Release: 2014-05-06
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 0674729706

This biography of statesman Edmund Burke (1730–1797), covering three decades, is the first to attend to the complexity of Burke’s thought as it emerges in both the major writings and private correspondence. David Bromwich reads Burke’s career as an imperfect attempt to organize an honorable life in the dense medium he knew politics to be.

The Great Debate

The Great Debate
Author: Yuval Levin
Publisher: Basic Books
Total Pages: 298
Release: 2013-12-03
Genre: History
ISBN: 0465040942

An acclaimed portrait of Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine, and the origins of modern conservatism and liberalism In The Great Debate, Yuval Levin explores the roots of the left/right political divide in America by examining the views of the men who best represented each side at its origin: Edmund Burke and Thomas Paine. Striving to forge a new political path in the tumultuous age of the American and French revolutions, these two ideological titans sparred over moral and philosophical questions about the nature of political life and the best approach to social change: radical and swift, or gradual and incremental. The division they articulated continues to shape our political life today. Essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the basis of our political order and Washington's acrimonious rifts today, The Great Debate offers a profound examination of what conservatism, progressivism, and the debate between them truly amount to.

Empire and Revolution

Empire and Revolution
Author: Richard Bourke
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Total Pages: 1029
Release: 2015-09-08
Genre: Biography & Autobiography
ISBN: 1400873452

A major new account of one of the leading philosopher-statesmen of the eighteenth century Edmund Burke (1730–97) lived during one of the most extraordinary periods of world history. He grappled with the significance of the British Empire in India, fought for reconciliation with the American colonies, and was a vocal critic of national policy during three European wars. He also advocated reform in Britain and became a central protagonist in the great debate on the French Revolution. Drawing on the complete range of printed and manuscript sources, Empire and Revolution offers a vivid reconstruction of the major concerns of this outstanding statesman, orator, and philosopher. In restoring Burke to his original political and intellectual context, this book overturns the conventional picture of a partisan of tradition against progress and presents a multifaceted portrait of one of the most captivating figures in eighteenth-century life and thought. A boldly ambitious work of scholarship, this book challenges us to rethink the legacy of Burke and the turbulent era in which he played so pivotal a role.

Edmund Burke and the Conservative Logic of Empire

Edmund Burke and the Conservative Logic of Empire
Author: Daniel O'Neill
Publisher: Univ of California Press
Total Pages: 266
Release: 2016-03
Genre: History
ISBN: 0520287835

Edmund Burke, long considered modern conservatism’s founding father, is also widely believed to be an opponent of empire. However, Daniel O’Neill turns that latter belief on its head. This fresh and innovative book shows that Burke was a passionate supporter and staunch defender of the British Empire in the eighteenth century, whether in the New World, India, or Ireland. Moreover—and against a growing body of contemporary scholarship that rejects the very notion that Burke was an exemplar of conservatism—O’Neill demonstrates that Burke’s defense of empire was in fact ideologically consistent with his conservative opposition to the French Revolution. Burke’s logic of empire relied on two opposing but complementary theoretical strategies: Ornamentalism, which stressed cultural similarities between “civilized” societies, as he understood them, and Orientalism, which stressed the putative cultural differences distinguishing “savage” societies from their “civilized” counterparts. This incisive book also shows that Burke’s argument had lasting implications, as his development of these two justifications for empire prefigured later intellectual defenses of British imperialism.

Commerce and Manners in Edmund Burke's Political Economy

Commerce and Manners in Edmund Burke's Political Economy
Author: Gregory M. Collins
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Total Pages: 581
Release: 2020-05-14
Genre: Business & Economics
ISBN: 1108489400

This book explores Edmund Burke's economic thought through his understanding of commerce in wider social, imperial, and ethical contexts.

Edmund Burke for Our Time

Edmund Burke for Our Time
Author: William F. Byrne
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Total Pages: 238
Release: 2021-08-15
Genre: Philosophy
ISBN: 1501755404

This highly readable book offers a contemporary interpretation of the political thought of Edmund Burke, drawing on his experiences to illuminate and address fundamental questions of politics and society that are of particular interest today. In Edmund Burke for Our Time, Byrne asserts that Burke's politics is reflective of unique and sophisticated ideas about how people think and learn and about determinants of political behavior.

Edmund Burke and the Invention of Modern Conservatism, 1830-1914

Edmund Burke and the Invention of Modern Conservatism, 1830-1914
Author: Emily Jones
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 284
Release: 2017
Genre: History
ISBN: 019879942X

Between 1830 and 1914 in Britain a dramatic modification of the reputation of Edmund Burke (1730-1797) occurred. Burke, an Irishman and Whig politician, is now most commonly known as the "founder of modern conservatism" - an intellectual tradition which is also deeply connected to the identity of the British Conservative Party. The idea of "Burkean conservatism"--a political philosophy which upholds "the authority of tradition," the organic, historic conception of society, and the necessity of order, religion, and property--has been incredibly influential both in international academic analysis and in the wider political world. This is a highly significant intellectual construct, but its origins have not yet been understood. This volume demonstrates, for the first time, that the transformation of Burke into the "founder of conservatism" was in fact part of wider developments in British political, intellectual, and cultural history in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Drawing from a wide range of sources, including political texts, parliamentary speeches, histories, biographies, and educational curricula, Edmund Burke and the Invention of Modern Conservatism shows how and why Burke's reputation was transformed over a formative period of British history. In doing so, it bridges the significant gap between the history of political thought as conventionally understood and the history of the making of political traditions. The result is to demonstrate that, by 1914, Burke had been firmly established as a "conservative" political philosopher and was admired and utilized by political Conservatives in Britain who identified themselves as his intellectual heirs. This was one essential component of a conscious re-working of C/conservatism which is still at work today.

Pragmatic Conservatism

Pragmatic Conservatism
Author: Robert J. Lacey
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 261
Release: 2016-08-05
Genre: Political Science
ISBN: 1137592958

This book is a study of pragmatic conservatism, an underappreciated tradition in modern American political thought, whose origins can be located in the ideas of Edmund Burke. Beginning with an exegesis of Burke's thought, it goes on to show how three twentieth-century thinkers who are not generally recognized as conservatives—Walter Lippmann, Reinhold Niebuhr, and Peter Viereck—carried on the Burkean tradition and adapted it to American democracy. Pragmatic conservatives posit that people, sinful by nature, require guidance from traditions that embody enduring truths wrought by past experience. Yet they also welcome incremental reform driven by established elites, judiciously departing from precedent when necessary. Mindful that truth is never absolute, they eschew ideology and caution against both bold political enterprises and stubborn apologies for the status quo. The book concludes by contrasting this more nuanced brand of conservatism with the radical version that emerged in the wake of the post-war Buckley revolution.

Complete Writings on America

Complete Writings on America
Author: Edmund Burke
Publisher:
Total Pages: 388
Release: 2016-03
Genre:
ISBN: 9781944418069

Edmund Burke was a principal defender of American rights during the revolutionary era. This volume presents his complete writings on the American crisis. Included are parliamentary speeches that did much to shape opinion at the time and continue to provide crucial insights into the historical nature of the rights and duties of peoples and their governments. Also included are important letters providing context for understanding issues surrounding and underlying the American Revolution. The result is a complete picture of the American conflict from the perspective of an important thinker within the natural law tradition. For this new edition, an Introduction by Bruce P. Frohnen, Ph.D., provides a concise summation of Burke's life and works, his philosophical approach, and the enduring relevance of his writings to political discourse to this day. Edmund Burke (1729-1797) was for several decades a member of the British Parliament, where he worked to defend constitutional free government against corruption, revolution, and the centralization of power. A famed orator and political thinker, he is credited with solidifying opposition to the anti-religious radicalism of the French Revolution and founding modern conservatism. Check out our other books at www.clunymedia.com!