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This book was converted from its physical edition to the digital format by a community of volunteers. You may find it for free on the web. Purchase of the Kindle edition includes wireless delivery. ... Read more

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A concise and readable account of Burke's political philosophy.As well as examining the foundation for Burke's thought, the book also provides much needed connections between the fields of history and political theory. Critical comment and analysis of Burke's attitudes to the problems of the second half of the eighteenth century are also included.

Available on its own, or as part of the 9-volume reissue of the classic Political Thinkers series. ... Read more

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This is an electronic edition of the complete book complemented by author biography. This book features the table of contents linked to every chapter, part, speech and footnote. The book was designed for optimal navigation on the Kindle, PDA, Smartphone, and other electronic readers. It is formatted to display on all electronic devices including the Kindle, Smartphones and other Mobile Devices with a small display.

Customer Reviews (1)

the power of Burke's writing
Works of Edmund Burke in Twelve Volumes. Published by MobileReference (mobi)

The ebook is not a quick read, yet it is surprisingly relevant to today's headlines. Burke's brilliant insights into human nature and the practical workings of governments far outshine most modern pundits. ... Read more

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This volume is produced from digital images created through the University of Michigan University Library's large-scale digitization efforts. The Library seeks to preserve the intellectual content of items in a manner that facilitates and promotes a variety of uses. The digital reformatting process results in an electronic version of the original text that can be both accessed online and used to create new print copies. The Library also understands and values the usefulness of print and makes reprints available to the public whenever possible. This book and hundreds of thousands of others can be found in the HathiTrust, an archive of the digitized collections of many great research libraries. For access to the University of Michigan Library's digital collections, please see http://www.lib.umich.edu and for information about the HathiTrust, please visit http://www.hathitrust.org ... Read more

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For serious cyclists, cycling coaches, and triathletes, the quest for a technical edge never stops. Led by two-time U.S. Olympic cycling team staff member and renowned cycling author Ed Burke, a world-class collection of cycling scientists reveal the most important, recent advances in the sport.

From heart rate monitors and altitude tents to power hubs, suspension systems, frame construction, and pedaling efficiency, this book covers every aspect of technology and technique. Additional chapters provide in-depth information on cycling nutrition, altitude training, and the physiological demands of workouts and races. Through it all you'll gain new insights how optimizing the dynamics between human and machine results in becoming a champion in the sport.

Whether you’re a serious cyclist, cycling coach, or triathlete seeking to improve your cycling, tap into the expert knowledge in High-Tech Cycling and boost your performance on the track, off-road, and beyond. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (9)

A Poser
While it might be ill to speak negatively about the deceased, Burke is the last person you would want to take advice from.I knew him while working at the Colorado Springs O.T.C. in the late 80's.A lifelong poser and hanger on, Ed was physically removed from the Olympic Training Center three times for harassing athletes and staff.His information is full of self serving BS.His training techniques have been shown to be based on Eastern European techniques and schedules for use with performance enhancers (a la Eddie B. and Juri). ANY of Carmichael's books are far superior to this.

High-Tech Cycling For All
This is a very scientific publication which can escape the interest and desire of those not serious about cycling. For those that want the edge for performance and racing knowledge, this book is for you. It is full of data that compares theories and applied sciences to biking. At times this information can be dry, but for those serious about biking, it is essential.

This book gives you the knowledge to make you ride your fastest, to have the Edge over your competitors, and to have the performance over your bicycling colleages. It covers cycling equipment, body positioning, cadence, cycling biomechanics, high altitude training, and nutrition. The information is current and thorough.

So much change
Riding a lot 10+ years ago, and starting again this year, I needed an upgrade.I picked this book up to help bring me into the current era and I wasn't disapointed.

My first dive into the book focused on the peddaling, heart rate and nutritional areas.After reading this, I really felt like I could sift thru a lot more of the (mis-)information that I was hearing.I don't ever expect to be this level of a cyclist, but it was great to learn about what really makes a difference - and what (at least as far as the current studies show) doesn't.

Nicely put together!

Over the Top
This was an interesting book but not particularly what I was looking for. I was looking for a book about riding technique to improve my efficiency. With the exception of a few paragraphs here and there, this book went deep into design physics of components, etc., etc. It would be great if you were into research and development of cycling compenents. However interesting it may have been, almost every chapter ended with a phrase that went something like this, "The research is inconclusive because of...."

Amazing Information
Thanks to Dr. Burke that he'd reviewed amazing world of cycling to me.

But some chapter have too hard to understand data that lots of equation (maybe i'm to stupid to understand)


Good source for serious cycling.
... Read more

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The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 03 (of 12) is presented here in a high quality paperback edition. This popular classic work by Edmund Burke is in the English language. If you enjoy the works of Edmund Burke then we highly recommend this publication for your book collection. ... Read more

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The most enduring work of its time, Reflections on the Revolution in France was written in 1790 and has remained in print ever since. Edmund Burke's analysis of revolutionary change established him as the chief framer of modern European conservative political thought. This outstanding new edition of the Reflections presents Burke's famous text along with a historical introduction by Frank M. Turner and four lively critical essays by leading scholars.The volume sets the Reflections in the context of Western political thought, highlights its ongoing relevance to contemporary debates, and provides abundant critical notes, a glossary, and a glossary-index to ensure its accessibility. Contributors to the book examine various provocative aspects of Burke's thought. Conor Cruise O'Brien explores Burke's hostility to "theory," Darrin McMahon considers Burke's characterization of the French Enlightenment, Jack Rakove contrasts the views of Burke and American constitutional framers on the process of drawing up constitutions, and Alan Wolfe investigates Burke, the social sciences, and liberal democracy. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Probably the greatest defense of tradition and political caution ever conceived
This is the book - a letter, actually - which established Burke's title as the father of conservatism in the English-speaking world. Burke did what no other writer had done in establishing a framework and a moral philosophy for conservative thought.

Burke deplored the reckless upheaval he saw in France, in which so much good was lost in a cataclysmic uprising, simply because it was traditional good. While not afraid of change, especially necessary change, Burke compellingly advocates caution and respect for tradition, so that political changes are more likely to be for the best.

Most importantly, Burke is almost single-handedly responsible for all modern conservative movements; while not all who call themselves conservative recognize Burke's centrality, all true conservatives see his work as foundational.

I could go on and on about this book, but thankfully thousands of other writers have done so already. For all these readings, this is required reading for anyone who wishes to play a meaningful role in society, whether liberal or conservative. A timeless classic.

Burke's evils of the French Revolution
This was required reading for a graduate course in the history of the French Revolution.In Burke's book Reflections on the Revolution in France, he penned a diatribe against the evils of the French Revolution,believing that there was a pernicious cabal of philosophes and politicians joined by money-jobbers whose aim was to topple not only the old regime in France, but to export their "plague" throughout Europe.Thus, Burke astutely understood and abhorred the influence that Radical Enlightenment ideas had on the French Revolution.One instantly detects, in Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France, a conservative philosophy by which he not only understood his own society, but the entire human civilization.Much of his work was an appeal to a politically conservative notion of a "created order" of the world, which from this reading seemed to be universal to all European nations.This reader sensed that Burke's Reflections were written as a warning to the rest of Europe not to follow the model of change embodied in the French Revolution, and to adopt the steady reforms that took place in England.

Burke found no social redeeming value in the French Revolution and when he wrote Reflections, the worst of the "reign of terror" had yet to come.In fact, if one used Georges Lefebvre's notion of "four acts" to the Revolution, Burke poured out all his criticism against the first two acts, the aristocratic and bourgeois revolts.This reader found Burke's long sections on British history used to buttress his case; that change should have come to France within a more staid social order as either ignorant of the complex socio-economic and political factors that led up to the Revolution, or as a naïve belief that that the French people were so culturally close to the English that they should both react in similar fashion to socio-political upheaval.Burke delivered a literary "tongue lashing" to the French for how easily they turned their backs on their socio-political traditions."You had all these advantages in your ancient states; but you chose to act as if you had never been moulded into civil society, and had everything to begin anew.You began ill, because you began by despising everything that belonged to you" (31).This reader found Burke's argument on this point a little disingenuous.He lectured how Britain's "Glorious Revolution" in 1688 should have been the model for reform.However, he barely mentioned the bloody English Civil War that Cromwell staged, including the regicide of Charles I.In addition, one's impression of Burke's information is that he had received a very narrow view of the history leading up to the Revolution and its opening days, which seemed confined to correspondence from a small circle of friends.Burke had high praise for the First and Second Estates.His opinion of the nobles he knew was that they were, "...for the greater part composed of men of high spirit, and of a delicate sense of honour....They were tolerably well bred; very officious, humane, and hospitable" (115-116).Not the impression one is left with after viewing the movie Dangerous Liaisons!In describing his personal contacts with the French clergy, he noted that, "I received a perfectly good account of their morals, and of their attention to their duties" (123).

Burke essentially observed a "cabal" that planned the opening of the Revolution to include a pronouncement of aristocratic intentions to abolish feudalism, the National Assembly's adoption of the "Declaration of the Rights of Man," and the confiscation of Church property.Burke blamed two evils for the old regimes' demise.First, he blamed the philosophes whose atheistic literature he believed provided the influential ideas necessary to set the Revolution in motion."The literary cabal had some years ago formed something like a regular plan for the destruction of the Christian religion" (94)."Writers, especially when they act in a body, and with one direction, have great influence on the public mind" (95).Second, he blamed the doubling of the Third Estate's representation in the National Assembly who were led by an overabundance of undistinguished lawyers and whose ambitions were to grab the reins of power.Burke described these men as "the inferior, unlearned, mechanical, merely instrumental members of the profession" (36).Burke also ascribed to this cabal; the desire to reorder society through the confiscation of property, which he decried in his Reflections."I see the confiscators begin with bishops, and chapters, and monasteries; but I do not see them end their" (128).Thus, Burke found that the pernicious cabal of philosophes and politicians were too enamored of the "new religion" of enlightenment science and had no respect for tradition or the wisdom of religion."They conceive very systematically, that all things which give perpetuity are mischievous" (75).
Alexis de Tocqueville noted how Burke misjudged the Revolution."At first he thought it meant that France would be weakened and virtually destroyed" (94).Burke also feared that this "irrational" revolution would infest his own countrymen similar to a plaque."If it be a plague, it is such a plague that the precautions of the most severe quarantine ought to be established against it." (76).

Burke was no stranger to enlightened ideas.After all, he had been a supporter of American and Irish liberty.Burke was a Conservative Enlightenment figure, defending "reason" with tradition and religion.However, what Burke, was condemning in its earliest form is what we now recognize as ideology.And what he understood with great foresight is the power of modern intellectuals, acting as a literary clerisy, to produce it.Thus, Burke found that the pernicious cabal of philosophes and politicians were too enamored of the "new religion" of enlightenment science and had no respect for tradition or the wisdom of religion."They conceive very systematically, that all things which give perpetuity are mischievous" (75).

Recommended reading for anyone interested in political philosophy, enlightenment history, and the French Revolution.
... Read more

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This anthology brings together Burke's most important speeches, letters and pamphlets -reprinted uncut (with one exception), with substantial headnotes and introduction by Bromwich. The collection purposefully does not include Burke's two most widely read works. Taken as a whole, the collection demonstrates the depth of Burke's humanitarian concern, and presents Burke as forerunner to a tradition of liberal political thought that includes Tocqueville and Mill, rather than stressing his role as a founder of Anglo-American conservatism, as he has been widely understood. ... Read more

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Edmund Burke (1730-1797) was one of the most profound, versatile, and accomplished thinkers of the eighteenth century. Born and educated in Dublin, he moved to London to study law, but remained to make a career in English politics, completing A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful (1757) before entering the political arena. A Member of Parliament for nearly thirty years, his speeches are still read and studied as classics of political thought, and through his best-known work, Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790) he has continued to exercise a posthumous influence as "the father of conservatism."

In this, the first of two volumes, F.P. Lock covers the years between 1730-1784, and describes Burke's Irish upbringing and education, early writing, and his parliamentary career throughout the momentous years of the American War of Independence. Lavishly illustrated, the book provides an authoritative account of the complexity and breadth of Burke's philosophical and political writing and examines its origins in his personal experiences and the political world of his day. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Balanced and thorough, biography as it should be
Of the various styles of biographies I've read, I think I prefer what Lock has achieved here.It's definitely not the kind of page-turner which Robert Caro delivers, nor is it heavily weighed down with details such as De La Grange has given us with Gustav Mahler.Instead, Lock gives us intelligently written background surrounding the issues and people as they arise;judicious use of Burke's letters (and letters to him) as well as his writings; and details that help bring the era to life.He also brings the themes together, which means the telling is not a simple chronology.Lock gives us all sides of Burke, too:not just the politician and the family man, but the brother and the farmer.What I also like about this book is that Lock does not hesitate to criticize Burke when his behavior is less than ethical or when Burke's arguments are disingenuous.It's a critical examination, and Lock doesn't dumb it down.(I can't wait for volume 2, although my checkbook can.)

A Great Book on A Great Man
This will become the standard biography of Burke - but this book is not just for scholars: anyone with an interest in 18th century politics and culture will benefit from reading this work. The narrative is wellwritten, with much detail and necessary (but not too basic) backgrounddetail; overall it keeps the reader's interest. Burke's own works areanalysed thoroughly, within the framework of his life. ... Read more

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Burke’s seminal work was written during the early months of the French Revolution, and it predicted with uncanny accuracy many of its worst excesses, including the Reign of Terror. A scathing attack on the revolution’s attitudes to existing institutions, property and religion, it makes a cogent case for upholding inherited rights and established customs, argues for piecemeal reform rather than revolutionary change – and deplores the influence Burke feared the revolution might have in Britain. Reflections on the Revolution in France is now widely regarded as a classic statement of conservative political thought, and is one of the eighteenth century’s great works of political rhetoric. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (14)

Burke's evils of the French Revolution
This was required reading for a graduate course in the history of the French Revolution.In Burke's book Reflections on the Revolution in France, he penned a diatribe against the evils of the French Revolution,believing that there was a pernicious cabal of philosophes and politicians joined by money-jobbers whose aim was to topple not only the old regime in France, but to export their "plague" throughout Europe.Thus, Burke astutely understood and abhorred the influence that Radical Enlightenment ideas had on the French Revolution.One instantly detects, in Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France, a conservative philosophy by which he not only understood his own society, but the entire human civilization.Much of his work was an appeal to a politically conservative notion of a "created order" of the world, which from this reading seemed to be universal to all European nations.This reader sensed that Burke's Reflections were written as a warning to the rest of Europe not to follow the model of change embodied in the French Revolution, and to adopt the steady reforms that took place in England.

Burke found no social redeeming value in the French Revolution and when he wrote Reflections, the worst of the "reign of terror" had yet to come.In fact, if one used Georges Lefebvre's notion of "four acts" to the Revolution, Burke poured out all his criticism against the first two acts, the aristocratic and bourgeois revolts.This reader found Burke's long sections on British history used to buttress his case; that change should have come to France within a more staid social order as either ignorant of the complex socio-economic and political factors that led up to the Revolution, or as a naïve belief that that the French people were so culturally close to the English that they should both react in similar fashion to socio-political upheaval.Burke delivered a literary "tongue lashing" to the French for how easily they turned their backs on their socio-political traditions."You had all these advantages in your ancient states; but you chose to act as if you had never been moulded into civil society, and had everything to begin anew.You began ill, because you began by despising everything that belonged to you" (31).This reader found Burke's argument on this point a little disingenuous.He lectured how Britain's "Glorious Revolution" in 1688 should have been the model for reform.However, he barely mentioned the bloody English Civil War that Cromwell staged, including the regicide of Charles I.In addition, one's impression of Burke's information is that he had received a very narrow view of the history leading up to the Revolution and its opening days, which seemed confined to correspondence from a small circle of friends.Burke had high praise for the First and Second Estates.His opinion of the nobles he knew was that they were, "...for the greater part composed of men of high spirit, and of a delicate sense of honour....They were tolerably well bred; very officious, humane, and hospitable" (115-116).Not the impression one is left with after viewing the movie Dangerous Liaisons!In describing his personal contacts with the French clergy, he noted that, "I received a perfectly good account of their morals, and of their attention to their duties" (123).

Burke essentially observed a "cabal" that planned the opening of the Revolution to include a pronouncement of aristocratic intentions to abolish feudalism, the National Assembly's adoption of the "Declaration of the Rights of Man," and the confiscation of Church property.Burke blamed two evils for the old regimes' demise.First, he blamed the philosophes whose atheistic literature he believed provided the influential ideas necessary to set the Revolution in motion."The literary cabal had some years ago formed something like a regular plan for the destruction of the Christian religion" (94)."Writers, especially when they act in a body, and with one direction, have great influence on the public mind" (95).Second, he blamed the doubling of the Third Estate's representation in the National Assembly who were led by an overabundance of undistinguished lawyers and whose ambitions were to grab the reins of power.Burke described these men as "the inferior, unlearned, mechanical, merely instrumental members of the profession" (36).Burke also ascribed to this cabal; the desire to reorder society through the confiscation of property, which he decried in his Reflections."I see the confiscators begin with bishops, and chapters, and monasteries; but I do not see them end their" (128).Thus, Burke found that the pernicious cabal of philosophes and politicians were too enamored of the "new religion" of enlightenment science and had no respect for tradition or the wisdom of religion."They conceive very systematically, that all things which give perpetuity are mischievous" (75).
Alexis de Tocqueville noted how Burke misjudged the Revolution."At first he thought it meant that France would be weakened and virtually destroyed" (94).Burke also feared that this "irrational" revolution would infest his own countrymen similar to a plaque."If it be a plague, it is such a plague that the precautions of the most severe quarantine ought to be established against it." (76).

Burke was no stranger to enlightened ideas.After all, he had been a supporter of American and Irish liberty.Burke was a Conservative Enlightenment figure, defending "reason" with tradition and religion.However, what Burke, was condemning in its earliest form is what we now recognize as ideology.And what he understood with great foresight is the power of modern intellectuals, acting as a literary clerisy, to produce it.Thus, Burke found that the pernicious cabal of philosophes and politicians were too enamored of the "new religion" of enlightenment science and had no respect for tradition or the wisdom of religion."They conceive very systematically, that all things which give perpetuity are mischievous" (75).

Recommended reading for anyone interested in political philosophy, enlightenment history, and the French Revolution.

Burke's evils of the French Revolution
This was required reading for a graduate course in the history of the French Revolution.In Burke's book Reflections on the Revolution in France, he penned a diatribe against the evils of the French Revolution,believing that there was a pernicious cabal of philosophes and politicians joined by money-jobbers whose aim was to topple not only the old regime in France, but to export their "plague" throughout Europe.Thus, Burke astutely understood and abhorred the influence that Radical Enlightenment ideas had on the French Revolution.One instantly detects, in Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France, a conservative philosophy by which he not only understood his own society, but the entire human civilization.Much of his work was an appeal to a politically conservative notion of a "created order" of the world, which from this reading seemed to be universal to all European nations.This reader sensed that Burke's Reflections were written as a warning to the rest of Europe not to follow the model of change embodied in the French Revolution, and to adopt the steady reforms that took place in England.

Burke found no social redeeming value in the French Revolution and when he wrote Reflections, the worst of the "reign of terror" had yet to come.In fact, if one used Georges Lefebvre's notion of "four acts" to the Revolution, Burke poured out all his criticism against the first two acts, the aristocratic and bourgeois revolts.This reader found Burke's long sections on British history used to buttress his case; that change should have come to France within a more staid social order as either ignorant of the complex socio-economic and political factors that led up to the Revolution, or as a naïve belief that that the French people were so culturally close to the English that they should both react in similar fashion to socio-political upheaval.Burke delivered a literary "tongue lashing" to the French for how easily they turned their backs on their socio-political traditions."You had all these advantages in your ancient states; but you chose to act as if you had never been moulded into civil society, and had everything to begin anew.You began ill, because you began by despising everything that belonged to you" (31).This reader found Burke's argument on this point a little disingenuous.He lectured how Britain's "Glorious Revolution" in 1688 should have been the model for reform.However, he barely mentioned the bloody English Civil War that Cromwell staged, including the regicide of Charles I.In addition, one's impression of Burke's information is that he had received a very narrow view of the history leading up to the Revolution and its opening days, which seemed confined to correspondence from a small circle of friends.Burke had high praise for the First and Second Estates.His opinion of the nobles he knew was that they were, "...for the greater part composed of men of high spirit, and of a delicate sense of honour....They were tolerably well bred; very officious, humane, and hospitable" (115-116).Not the impression one is left with after viewing the movie Dangerous Liaisons!In describing his personal contacts with the French clergy, he noted that, "I received a perfectly good account of their morals, and of their attention to their duties" (123).

Burke essentially observed a "cabal" that planned the opening of the Revolution to include a pronouncement of aristocratic intentions to abolish feudalism, the National Assembly's adoption of the "Declaration of the Rights of Man," and the confiscation of Church property.Burke blamed two evils for the old regimes' demise.First, he blamed the philosophes whose atheistic literature he believed provided the influential ideas necessary to set the Revolution in motion."The literary cabal had some years ago formed something like a regular plan for the destruction of the Christian religion" (94)."Writers, especially when they act in a body, and with one direction, have great influence on the public mind" (95).Second, he blamed the doubling of the Third Estate's representation in the National Assembly who were led by an overabundance of undistinguished lawyers and whose ambitions were to grab the reins of power.Burke described these men as "the inferior, unlearned, mechanical, merely instrumental members of the profession" (36).Burke also ascribed to this cabal; the desire to reorder society through the confiscation of property, which he decried in his Reflections."I see the confiscators begin with bishops, and chapters, and monasteries; but I do not see them end their" (128).Thus, Burke found that the pernicious cabal of philosophes and politicians were too enamored of the "new religion" of enlightenment science and had no respect for tradition or the wisdom of religion."They conceive very systematically, that all things which give perpetuity are mischievous" (75).
Alexis de Tocqueville noted how Burke misjudged the Revolution."At first he thought it meant that France would be weakened and virtually destroyed" (94).Burke also feared that this "irrational" revolution would infest his own countrymen similar to a plaque."If it be a plague, it is such a plague that the precautions of the most severe quarantine ought to be established against it." (76).

Burke was no stranger to enlightened ideas.After all, he had been a supporter of American and Irish liberty.Burke was a Conservative Enlightenment figure, defending "reason" with tradition and religion.However, what Burke, was condemning in its earliest form is what we now recognize as ideology.And what he understood with great foresight is the power of modern intellectuals, acting as a literary clerisy, to produce it.Thus, Burke found that the pernicious cabal of philosophes and politicians were too enamored of the "new religion" of enlightenment science and had no respect for tradition or the wisdom of religion."They conceive very systematically, that all things which give perpetuity are mischievous" (75).

Recommended reading for anyone interested in political philosophy, enlightenment history, and the French Revolution.

Could have been written by a Thermidorian pamphleteer
Burke's "Reflections on the Revolution in France" is analysis lacking in accuracy and originality by an enemy of democracy which should not be read without careful consideration of the author's motives and a thorough fore-knowledge of the French Revolution. Do yourself a favor and read some worthwhile reflections.

The Revised Oxford Edition It Ain't
Don't buy this book!The Revised Oxford Edition of this classic book has it all:Insightful introduction, properly translated quotations, fine notes.

Text is Great, Intro by L.G.Mitchell is better
Can't improve on the text of REFLECTIONS ON THE REVOLUTION IN FRANCE.He was the dominant political thinker of the last quarter of the 18th century in ENgland.His reputation depends less on his role as a practising politician than on his ability to set contemporary problems within a wider context of political theory.The introduction by L.G. Mitchell argues this point congently. Mitchell's intro appears in the Oxford University Press edition. It's cheaper, too. ... Read more

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Many of the earliest books, particularly those dating back to the 1900s and before, are now extremely scarce and increasingly expensive. Hesperides Pressare republishing these classic works in affordable, high quality, modern editions, using the original text and artwork. ... Read more

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In his famous "Reflections on the Revolution in France" (1790), Edmund Burke excoriated French revolutionary leaders for recklessly destroying France's venerable institutions and way of life. But his war against the French intelligentsia did not end there, and Burke continues to take pen in hand against the Jacobins until his death in 1797. This collection brings together for the first time in unabridged form Burke's writings on the French Revolution that anticipate, refine, and summarise the works in his famous "Reflection on the Revolution in France". There are seven items in this collection. Included are 'Letter to a Member of the National Assembly', 'Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs', and 'A Letter to a Noble Lord'. A foreword and headnotes to each selection point the reader to some of the key issues. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Burke's evils of the French Revolution
This was required reading for a graduate course in the history of the French Revolution.In Burke's book Reflections on the Revolution in France, he penned a diatribe against the evils of the French Revolution,believing that there was a pernicious cabal of philosophes and politicians joined by money-jobbers whose aim was to topple not only the old regime in France, but to export their "plague" throughout Europe.Thus, Burke astutely understood and abhorred the influence that Radical Enlightenment ideas had on the French Revolution.One instantly detects, in Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France, a conservative philosophy by which he not only understood his own society, but the entire human civilization.Much of his work was an appeal to a politically conservative notion of a "created order" of the world, which from this reading seemed to be universal to all European nations.This reader sensed that Burke's Reflections were written as a warning to the rest of Europe not to follow the model of change embodied in the French Revolution, and to adopt the steady reforms that took place in England.

Burke found no social redeeming value in the French Revolution and when he wrote Reflections, the worst of the "reign of terror" had yet to come.In fact, if one used Georges Lefebvre's notion of "four acts" to the Revolution, Burke poured out all his criticism against the first two acts, the aristocratic and bourgeois revolts.This reader found Burke's long sections on British history used to buttress his case; that change should have come to France within a more staid social order as either ignorant of the complex socio-economic and political factors that led up to the Revolution, or as a naïve belief that that the French people were so culturally close to the English that they should both react in similar fashion to socio-political upheaval.Burke delivered a literary "tongue lashing" to the French for how easily they turned their backs on their socio-political traditions."You had all these advantages in your ancient states; but you chose to act as if you had never been moulded into civil society, and had everything to begin anew.You began ill, because you began by despising everything that belonged to you" (31).This reader found Burke's argument on this point a little disingenuous.He lectured how Britain's "Glorious Revolution" in 1688 should have been the model for reform.However, he barely mentioned the bloody English Civil War that Cromwell staged, including the regicide of Charles I.In addition, one's impression of Burke's information is that he had received a very narrow view of the history leading up to the Revolution and its opening days, which seemed confined to correspondence from a small circle of friends.Burke had high praise for the First and Second Estates.His opinion of the nobles he knew was that they were, "...for the greater part composed of men of high spirit, and of a delicate sense of honour....They were tolerably well bred; very officious, humane, and hospitable" (115-116).Not the impression one is left with after viewing the movie Dangerous Liaisons!In describing his personal contacts with the French clergy, he noted that, "I received a perfectly good account of their morals, and of their attention to their duties" (123).

Burke essentially observed a "cabal" that planned the opening of the Revolution to include a pronouncement of aristocratic intentions to abolish feudalism, the National Assembly's adoption of the "Declaration of the Rights of Man," and the confiscation of Church property.Burke blamed two evils for the old regimes' demise.First, he blamed the philosophes whose atheistic literature he believed provided the influential ideas necessary to set the Revolution in motion."The literary cabal had some years ago formed something like a regular plan for the destruction of the Christian religion" (94)."Writers, especially when they act in a body, and with one direction, have great influence on the public mind" (95).Second, he blamed the doubling of the Third Estate's representation in the National Assembly who were led by an overabundance of undistinguished lawyers and whose ambitions were to grab the reins of power.Burke described these men as "the inferior, unlearned, mechanical, merely instrumental members of the profession" (36).Burke also ascribed to this cabal; the desire to reorder society through the confiscation of property, which he decried in his Reflections."I see the confiscators begin with bishops, and chapters, and monasteries; but I do not see them end their" (128).Thus, Burke found that the pernicious cabal of philosophes and politicians were too enamored of the "new religion" of enlightenment science and had no respect for tradition or the wisdom of religion."They conceive very systematically, that all things which give perpetuity are mischievous" (75).
Alexis de Tocqueville noted how Burke misjudged the Revolution."At first he thought it meant that France would be weakened and virtually destroyed" (94).Burke also feared that this "irrational" revolution would infest his own countrymen similar to a plaque."If it be a plague, it is such a plague that the precautions of the most severe quarantine ought to be established against it." (76).

Burke was no stranger to enlightened ideas.After all, he had been a supporter of American and Irish liberty.Burke was a Conservative Enlightenment figure, defending "reason" with tradition and religion.However, what Burke, was condemning in its earliest form is what we now recognize as ideology.And what he understood with great foresight is the power of modern intellectuals, acting as a literary clerisy, to produce it.Thus, Burke found that the pernicious cabal of philosophes and politicians were too enamored of the "new religion" of enlightenment science and had no respect for tradition or the wisdom of religion."They conceive very systematically, that all things which give perpetuity are mischievous" (75).

Recommended reading for anyone interested in political philosophy, enlightenment history, and the French Revolution.
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A main text or supplement for courses in Art History or Art Appreciation.   Written by an eminent authority in the field, this text teaches the history of art through the history of the artist – exploring the broad range of artist-types, surveying the roles and social status of artists, and revealing how the various artistic roles are alive and active today.

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One of America's most distinguished intellectual historians explores the minds and lives of some of the most brilliant and provocative thinkers of modern times: Edmund Burke and John Stuart Mill, Benjamin Disraeli and Winston Churchill, Jane Austen and George Eliot, Charles Dickens and John Buchan, Walter Bagehot and the Knox brothers, Michael Oakeshott and Lionel Trilling. In their distinctive ways, Ms. Himmelfarb argues, they exemplify what Burke two centuries ago and Trilling most recently have called the moral imagination. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

New Slants
G. Himmelfarb has some very different insights into the authors she discusses and puts some of the characters in the novels in new lights.I have enjoyed reading this book and she has prodded me into reading further in the authors discussed.I would recommend this book to any persons interested in changing the 'moral tone' of American today.

Links intellectual lives to the moral imagination
Gertrude Himmelfarb's THE MORAL IMAGINATION is a recommended pick, here linking the intellectual lives of modern thinker and literary giants with what she identifies as the 'moral imagination'. How these thinkers evolved their ideas, wrote in different traditions at different times, and shared a common moral passion which reflected in their literature makes for truly involving reading.
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First written in 1757, this treatise on aesthetics provides a distinct transition from Neoclassicism to Romanticism. This is apparent in Burke's ultimate preference for the Sublime over the Beautiful, for he defined the latter as that which is well-formed and aesthetically pleasing and the former as that which has the power to compel or destroy mankind. Within this text, Burke also posits that the origin of these ideas comes by way of their causal structures, utilizing Aristotelian concepts to fully explore his ideas. He is original in conceiving of beauty outside of its traditional bases and in seeing the sublime as having an entirely separate causal structure, which he outlines in depth. In putting the beautiful and the sublime in their own rational categories, Burke's treatise displays the expansive thinking unique to the turbulent times in which he lived. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

Edmund Burke Was Right.
Edmund Burke (Genius) Reflections on the Revolution in France, 1986,Penguin classics,Intro by Conor Cruise O'Brien,
Cover shows The Liberty Tree 1789, ISBN 0-14-043204-3 / 9 780140 432046 , Not sure why Amazon has the book isbn mixed with Paine's Rights Of Man.

This book is Wonderful and Goes to show that Change is not always Good,Revolutions are hardly ever good(Except American),The Madness of the French Revolution and the killing of Priests and Nuns and burning of the altars,along with the worship of "reason" anything but God can make any true student of History Question the So-called Revolutions of the Past, French,Bolshevik,Mao,and Cuban. All looked at by those on the Left as Refreshing while Us on the Right people losing their morals and minds. The feeble Minded follow Leaders,From Lenin/Stalin To Hitler.
Edmund Burke had it Right as A IrishMan and Yes As A Catholic. The Introduction by Conor Cruise O'Brien to this Particular book(Remember 80s,Reagan was President,Liberals were Mad) Is hogwash, because of it's little and ineffective jabs at Conservatism and those who want To Use Burke for Conservatism(Rightfully so He belongs to us),It's Actually Great to Know That Reagan Got it right while Conor got it wrong with his little words of "imperialism" and "oppressed" and his opinion of counter-revolution,The Right Won the Cold War,the Left continues to lose.

Burke's evils of the French Revolution
This was required reading for a graduate course in the history of the French Revolution.In Burke's book Reflections on the Revolution in France, he penned a diatribe against the evils of the French Revolution,believing that there was a pernicious cabal of philosophes and politicians joined by money-jobbers whose aim was to topple not only the old regime in France, but to export their "plague" throughout Europe.Thus, Burke astutely understood and abhorred the influence that Radical Enlightenment ideas had on the French Revolution.One instantly detects, in Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France, a conservative philosophy by which he not only understood his own society, but the entire human civilization.Much of his work was an appeal to a politically conservative notion of a "created order" of the world, which from this reading seemed to be universal to all European nations.This reader sensed that Burke's Reflections were written as a warning to the rest of Europe not to follow the model of change embodied in the French Revolution, and to adopt the steady reforms that took place in England.

Burke found no social redeeming value in the French Revolution and when he wrote Reflections, the worst of the "reign of terror" had yet to come.In fact, if one used Georges Lefebvre's notion of "four acts" to the Revolution, Burke poured out all his criticism against the first two acts, the aristocratic and bourgeois revolts.This reader found Burke's long sections on British history used to buttress his case; that change should have come to France within a more staid social order as either ignorant of the complex socio-economic and political factors that led up to the Revolution, or as a naïve belief that that the French people were so culturally close to the English that they should both react in similar fashion to socio-political upheaval.Burke delivered a literary "tongue lashing" to the French for how easily they turned their backs on their socio-political traditions."You had all these advantages in your ancient states; but you chose to act as if you had never been moulded into civil society, and had everything to begin anew.You began ill, because you began by despising everything that belonged to you" (31).This reader found Burke's argument on this point a little disingenuous.He lectured how Britain's "Glorious Revolution" in 1688 should have been the model for reform.However, he barely mentioned the bloody English Civil War that Cromwell staged, including the regicide of Charles I.In addition, one's impression of Burke's information is that he had received a very narrow view of the history leading up to the Revolution and its opening days, which seemed confined to correspondence from a small circle of friends.Burke had high praise for the First and Second Estates.His opinion of the nobles he knew was that they were, "...for the greater part composed of men of high spirit, and of a delicate sense of honour....They were tolerably well bred; very officious, humane, and hospitable" (115-116).Not the impression one is left with after viewing the movie Dangerous Liaisons!In describing his personal contacts with the French clergy, he noted that, "I received a perfectly good account of their morals, and of their attention to their duties" (123).

Burke essentially observed a "cabal" that planned the opening of the Revolution to include a pronouncement of aristocratic intentions to abolish feudalism, the National Assembly's adoption of the "Declaration of the Rights of Man," and the confiscation of Church property.Burke blamed two evils for the old regimes' demise.First, he blamed the philosophes whose atheistic literature he believed provided the influential ideas necessary to set the Revolution in motion."The literary cabal had some years ago formed something like a regular plan for the destruction of the Christian religion" (94)."Writers, especially when they act in a body, and with one direction, have great influence on the public mind" (95).Second, he blamed the doubling of the Third Estate's representation in the National Assembly who were led by an overabundance of undistinguished lawyers and whose ambitions were to grab the reins of power.Burke described these men as "the inferior, unlearned, mechanical, merely instrumental members of the profession" (36).Burke also ascribed to this cabal; the desire to reorder society through the confiscation of property, which he decried in his Reflections."I see the confiscators begin with bishops, and chapters, and monasteries; but I do not see them end their" (128).Thus, Burke found that the pernicious cabal of philosophes and politicians were too enamored of the "new religion" of enlightenment science and had no respect for tradition or the wisdom of religion."They conceive very systematically, that all things which give perpetuity are mischievous" (75).
Alexis de Tocqueville noted how Burke misjudged the Revolution."At first he thought it meant that France would be weakened and virtually destroyed" (94).Burke also feared that this "irrational" revolution would infest his own countrymen similar to a plaque."If it be a plague, it is such a plague that the precautions of the most severe quarantine ought to be established against it." (76).

Burke was no stranger to enlightened ideas.After all, he had been a supporter of American and Irish liberty.Burke was a Conservative Enlightenment figure, defending "reason" with tradition and religion.However, what Burke, was condemning in its earliest form is what we now recognize as ideology.And what he understood with great foresight is the power of modern intellectuals, acting as a literary clerisy, to produce it.Thus, Burke found that the pernicious cabal of philosophes and politicians were too enamored of the "new religion" of enlightenment science and had no respect for tradition or the wisdom of religion."They conceive very systematically, that all things which give perpetuity are mischievous" (75).

Recommended reading for anyone interested in political philosophy, enlightenment history, and the French Revolution.
... Read more

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"By any reasonable judgment, Burke has to be considered one of the world's outstanding thinkers on politics."-- Peter J. Stanlis, from his Preface ... Read more

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A Classical Regnery Anthology of a Conservative Luminary
~Edmund Burke: Selected Writings and Speeches~ is a great anthology of conservative luminary Edmund Burke's political and social writings. Burke is considered by many to be the godfather of conservatism. The Irish-born British conservative entered Trinity College at Dublin in 1744 and later moved to London in 1750. In 1770, in his tract entitled the 'Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents,' he scolded George III for his efforts at undoing the hard-won liberties that were thought to have been secured by the Glorious Revolution. Burke was a champion of the rule of law, and surmised that prerogatives of the king may not usurp that law, and that even the magistrates are to be constrained by the law. He defended the constraining hand of Parliament against the king's usurpations and cronyism in political appointments. He supported principled, calm, deliberative criticism of royal prerogatives by Parliamentarians, which he held to be a vital link in the preservation of the British constitution and ordered liberty.

Burke was an Old Whig, and on the Right side of the political spectrum and had no rosy delusions about human nature. His contemporaries on the Left like Jean-Jacques Rousseau had a positive and a optimistic view of human nature, and in his eyes humanity merely needed to be liberated from the decadent enslaving institutions of civil society. On the other hand, Burke recognized man's sinful nature and innate depravity and incorporated the Augustinian-Christian doctrine of original sin into his political philosophy. "Whatever disunites man from God, also disunites man from man," declares Burke. What is more, Burke does not see equality as self-evident, but he astutely observes that inequality is part of the natural order of things. The ideal equality to strive for was equality before the law, not equality of condition or even opportunity. Burke recognized that the illusive search for equality was in fact destructive of the liberty that was to accompany it because egalitarian ideology was fundamentally at odds with human nature.For this reason, Burke was opposed to the French Revolution and scolded the Jacobin rebellion for its barbarity, its egalitarian tyranny, and the unattainable antinomy of absolute freedom that was sought after. He likewise abhorred the initial English enthusiasm for the events across the sea in France and lamented that such an upheaval would never afflict England. Yet Burke, an Old Whig was a champion of the Rights of the Englishmen, and spoke out on behalf of the American, Irish and the Indian colonials. "Good order is the foundation of all things," quipped Burke in his Reflections on the French Revolution. Burke offered much prescriptive wisdom about reforming and bettering civil society while conserving the vital remnants and traditions so vitally requisite to the continuity of civil society. He yielded his acquiescence of support to the American Cause of 1776 and the Glorious Revolution of 1688. Burke assailed the abuses perpetrated against American colonials in exploitative taxation, arbitrary suspension of the rights of colonials and an overall condescending attitude of contempt that pervaded the attitude of government towards the colonial subjects therein. Burke worked tirelessly for conciliation between British and American colonials, though the Tories prevailed and their efforts to spite and to subjugate the colonials only led to the American colonials' victorious secession by force of arms. Furthermore, Burke was opposed to the aggrandizing of power and the corruption of the law, and recognized that ordered liberty must be upheld. Burke observed, "Bad law is the worst sort of tyranny." He was practical and pragmatic to the extent needed without discarding first principles, as he accepted that, "All government-indeed, every human benefit and enjoyment, every virtue and every prudent act-is founded on compromise and barter." Yet Burke was mistrustful of concentrated power and observed, "Those who have been once intoxicated with power, and have derived any kind of emolument from it, even though but for one year, never can willingly abandon it. They may be distressed in the midst of all their power; but they will never look to anything but power for their relief."

The reductionism and sophistry of modern critics casts conservatives as knaves who nostalgically seek preservation of the status quo irrespective of whatever tyrannies and social pathologies afflict the people. However, Burke above all shows that classical conservatism is not quixotic sentimentalism about tradition but rather a desire to conserve those vital remnants so necessary to continuation of ordered liberty while improving civil society through patient, contemplative, informed and calmly deliberative political dialogue. Sometimes standing up to sheer tyranny through resistance and civil disobedience is in order. Though, "Our patience will achieve more than our force," avowed Burke. Burke justly condemned the barbarity of the French Revolution and no doubt considers the interposition of the lesser magistrates as requisite in combating the usurpations of higher magistrates, ministers, and leaders.

All things considered, this brilliant anthology of Burke's more renowned works is certainly a great introduction to the perennial conservative.

conservatism's bard
What a heady time were the late 1700's.For hundreds, even thousands, of years, Western man hadbeen saddled with monarchy; kings who were said to rule by divine right.But by the end of the 18thcentury, Martin Luther, John Locke and Adam Smith had propounded the essential framework formodern liberal capitalist democracy and the Revolution in America had launched a grand experimentbased on those ideas.Then came the French Revolution and it was blithely assumed that here againLiberty was on the march.When suddenly, rising to meet the tide of history, came Edmund Burke toexcoriate the Jacobins and denounce the Revolution.In so doing, he not only did mankind a greatservice, by sounding the alarms against unchecked liberty, he also basically gave birth to modernConservatism.Today, after a long period in the wilderness, particularly during the Cold War, EdmundBurke has come roaring back into fashion.In a sense, he has finally won his argument with thedefenders of the French Revolution, two hundred years after the fact, and is reaping the spoils.

For two centuries a controversy has raged over Burke's political philosophy, in particular whether thegreat defender of American, Irish and Indian rights was inconsistent in opposing the FrenchRevolution.The very existence and the stubborn persistence of this controversy seem to demonstrateeither a complete misunderstanding or a willful misrepresentation of Burke's basic arguments.Onesuspects it's a bit of both.The greatness of Burke lies in the fact that he was among the first, andcertainly the most eloquent, defenders of democracy to recognize the dangers it entails; that power inthe hands of the masses is just as great a threat to liberty as when it lies in the hand of a dictator orking.This point had been amply demonstrated in France, where the revolutionists had quicklyabandoned any concern for personal freedom and had moved on to a bloody demand forequality--freedom's enemy.

It is here that we arrive at the key point that divides the modern Left and Right.The Left believes (a laRousseau) that man is by nature "good" and all men are born with equal abilities, but thatenvironmental factors and corrupt institutions warp individuals, making some evil and keeping othersfrom realizing their full potentials; which if realized would make them equal to other men.The goalof the Left is therefore to remove, by any means necessary, these environmental and institutionalimpediments and return to an imagined state of nature where all men are good and are equally able;where Man will be governed by pure reason.

The Right, on the other hand, recognizes that man is inately "evil"; that is, evil in the sense that he isself centered and will generally act in his own interest not the interest of others.Moreover, men areinherently unequal; in the state of nature, the able will tyrannize the less able.It is for these reasonsthat men form governments in the first place; to protect themselves from one another.The goal of theRight is to provide each individual with the greatest personal freedom and utmost opportunity to realizehis potential, consistent with the basic safety concerns that gave birth to the state in the first instance. Conservatives realize that pure reason will not lead men to treat each other with justice, by nature, menwill always seek advantage over one another.The State and other institutions safeguard us against thiseventuality.

This fundamental difference can not be overstated.Prior to the 18th century, the Left would haveincluded all democrats, while the Right would have been made up of monarchists and supporters ofaristocracy.But beginning with the French Revolution, this fissure separated the regnant liberal forcesinto two competing camps, setting the stage for the two century long contest that ended in the early1990's with the fall of the Soviet Union.Both sides would produce great men, original theorists,brilliant writers and magnificent orators, but none of them would ever surpass Burke and his mastery ofall these fields.Rare are the men who so clearly perceive the fundamental issues that confrontmankind.They seem at times to be travelers from the future, come to warn us about what horrors theyears to come will hold unless we obey their counsel.Rarer still are the occasions when we heedthem.We can only imagine the millions of lives that would have been saved had people followedBurke's vision rather that that of Rousseau and Jefferson and Marx.

Happily, here in America, James Madison's Constitution embodies many of the same ideas and protectsagainst many of the concerns which Burke expressed.The adoption of representative, rather thandirect, democracy; the bicameral legislature and tripartite government; the careful system of checks andbalances; the protection of basic rights from government interference: these are all, though we seldomdiscuss them in these terms, intended to protect the individual from the potentially tyrannical effects ofdemocracy.When commentators speak of the genius of the American system, whether they realize itor not, it is to this central fact that they refer.So while critics have struggled to understand a falsedichotomy in Burke's thought, we (and to a lesser extent the Brits) have enjoyed the fruits of a politicalsystem which assumes that his critique of democracy is less theory than received wisdom.Forwhatever reason, it took two hundred years and countless millions of lives before the rest of the worldrecognized what Burke (the bard) and Madison (the draftsman) had known all along; two centuries thatproved them indisputably correct.

GRADE: A+

One of the 25 most important conservative books
If Ronald Reagan is the great communicator, Burke must be theextraordinary communicator. Someone once said that pages of Burke are likesheets of fire.

        During the time he lived, in the 18th century,most political leaders were hereditary aristocrats, but Burke, like Cicero,did not descend from generations of prominent leaders. He earned hisleadership in British politics through the power of his mind, by studyingpolitical principles and applying them to real circumstances. A superficiallook at Burke's career might tempt one to dismiss him as a failure. Most ofthe causes to which he devoted himself were not successful in hislifetime.

        Prior to the American Revolution, he wrote brilliantlyon behalf of conciliation between Britain and the American colonies. Heargued for fair treatment of India by Britain. He argued for fair treatmentof the Irish by the British and for Catholic emancipation in England. Intime these positions won acceptance, but the acceptance came after Burke'sdeath.

        Fortunately, he did live long enough to see the triumph ofthe greatest work of his life: his effort to awaken his country to thefundamentally destructive but superficially attractive nature of the FrenchRevolution. His thorough and, I believe, inspired condemnation of theFrench Revolution swept British majority opinion. To Burke, more than anyother politician of his time, goes the credit for creating the intellectualforce which saved Europe from revolutionary chaos anddictatorship.

        Modern-day conservatives are also profoundly in hisdebt, as his writings against the French revolution provided thephilosophical foundation for anti-communism in particular and orderedliberty in general. Read Burke. All his writings on government and politicsare a rich ore, studded with gems of wisdom. ... Read more

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Mary Wollstonecraft (1759-1797) published A Vindication of the Rights of Men anonymously in 1790. The pamphlet sold out within three weeks to great acclaim, though later editions published under her own name met with notable opprobrium. It was the first of many printed responses to Edmund Burke's conservative attacks on the French Revolution, and it marked Wollstonecraft's entry into the intellectual arena of the late eighteenth century. She attacked hereditary privilege and political conservatism, arguing for codified civil rights and political liberty. She also highlighted Burke's gendered language and criticised his silence on the plight of women. Wollstonecraft has inspired reverence and revulsion alike, for both her work and her lifestyle. Her prescience and nonconformity, however, have secured her position in the canon of distinguished eighteenth-century political thinkers. For more information on this author, see http://orlando.cambridge.org/public/svPeople?person_id=wollma ... Read more