Reflections on the Revolution in France and Other Writings: Edited and Introduced by Jesse Norman

by Edmund Burke, Jesse Norman (Introduction)

The most important works of Edmund Burke, the greatest political thinker of the past three centuries, are gathered here in one comprehensive volume. Accompanying his influential masterpiece,  Reflections on the Revolution in France , is a selection of pamphlets, speeches, public letters, private correspondence and, for the first time, two important and previously uncollected early essays.  

Philosopher, statesman, and founder of conservatism, Burke was a dazzling orator and a visionary theorist who spent his long political career fighting abuses of power. He wrote at a time of great change, against the backdrop of the revolt of the American colonies, the expansion of the British Empire, the collapse of Ireland, and the French Revolution. Burke argued passionately in support of the American revolutionaries and in equally impassioned opposition to the horrors of the unfolding French Revolution. Making a case for upholding established rights and customs, and advocating incremental reform rather than radical revolutionary change, Burke’s writings have profoundly influenced modern democracies up to the present day.

Edited and Introduced by Jesse Norman.

Genres: Philosophy, History, Politics, Classics, Nonfiction, European History, Political Science

1160 pages, Hardcover

First published October 7, 2014

About the author

After A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful , aesthetic treatise of 1757, Edmund Burke, also noted Irish British politician and writer, supported the cause of the American colonists in Parliament but took a more conservative position in his Reflections on the Revolution in France in 1790.

Edmund Burke, an Anglo statesman, author, orator, and theorist, served for many years in the House of Commons as a member of the Whig party. People remember mainly the dispute with George III, great king, and his leadership and strength. The latter made Burke to lead figures, dubbed the "old" faction of the Whig against new Charles James Fox. Burke published a work and attempted to define triggering of emotions and passions in a person. Burke worked and founded the Annual Register, a review. People often regard him as the Anglo founder.

Reviews

[The American Conservative]

With excellent timing, as Oxford University Press’s nine-volume edition of Edmund Burke’s writings and speeches reaches completion after 34 years, Jesse Norman, an academic and member of Parliament for Britain’s Conservative Party, has presented an updated and considerably expanded selection of Burke’s writings for the famous Everyman’s Library. This volume, with its sharply focused introduction and impressively thorough chronology, notes, and index, weighs in at a little over one thousand pages, and it is as weighty in conception and scholarship, providing a valuable measure of the strides made in Burke studies over recent decades.

Read the full review, "Edmund Burke’s Idea of Party," on our website:

http://www.theamericanconservative.co...

[Ben · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is a very good resource for those looking for a representative collection of Edmund Burke's writings. I was going to call it an introduction to Burke, but at nearly 1,000 pages, and covering his entire writing career, this is much more than just an introduction. Still, for someone looking for an a way to start reading Burke, this is a great place to start.

Burke is as advertised in these pages: insightful, passionate, prescient, and at times downright hilarious. These qualities make him a joy to read. But, for the 21st century reader, he's also extremely difficult to read in some ways. Burke was extremely attuned to the nuances and details of his arguments, and he takes the time (sometimes over the course of several pages) to explore them, which makes following along sometimes difficult for those of us reading more than 200 years after the fact. Another complicating feature of Burke's writing is his unique (to put it mildly) style of punctuation.

For those who want to read Burke, instead of just read about him, and who are willing to put in a little more effort than a typical book requires, this edition is a great resource.

[The American Conservative]

With excellent timing, as Oxford University Press’s nine-volume edition of Edmund Burke’s writings and speeches reaches completion after 34 years, Jesse Norman, an academic and member of Parliament for Britain’s Conservative Party, has presented an updated and considerably expanded selection of Burke’s writings for the famous Everyman’s Library. This volume, with its sharply focused introduction and impressively thorough chronology, notes, and index, weighs in at a little over one thousand pages, and it is as weighty in conception and scholarship, providing a valuable measure of the strides made in Burke studies over recent decades.

Norman’s own study, Edmund Burke: The First Conservative, published in 2013, is noteworthy particularly for how the author’s experience as a scholar and practicing politician drives an analytical shift in the topography of Burke’s thought, sharpening the focus on political parties and representation, and contrasting his subject’s elevating, fundamental conception of the “human self [as] a social self” with the corrosive effects of liberal individualism. Such emphases were not unexpected from a writer closely involved with former prime minister David Cameron’s vision of a “Big Society,” and they reappear in the introduction to this volume. If they also inform Norman’s selection of texts, that is to be expected and, in its result, welcomed, since it conveys a fresh picture of Burke’s lifelong struggle to retain the cohesiveness of his principles amid the sharp twists and changing circumstances of what he once termed “the awful drama of Providence.” This collection, then, is not just one more anthology but a distinctive contribution to the question of how we might most productively read Burke today.

http://www.theamericanconservative.co...

[William Rumball · Rating 5 out of 5]

An essential read for anyone interested in Conservative thought, as Reflections effectively founded the principles of Whig Conservatism in the Anglosphere. Like a lot of classics, one has to plough through a lot of commentary on historical events (while intriguing in itself) in order to piece out the Conservative philosophy that undergirds Reflections and makes it a source of enduring interest. Consequently we do not find in the Reflections a comprehensive account of Conservative thought (but I do not want to press this criticism too hard as this was not what the Reflections intended to be).
The other writings were an impressive all encompassing account of all of Burke's thought as a junior, then prominent MP. Interestingly, they show how much of a progressive Burke was on all the issues of his day: supporting Catholic emancipation, opposition to slavery (or at least curtailing its worst abuses), concern for the mistreatment of natives by the East India Company and sympathy with the American War of Independence. All of which gives context to the surprising opposition Burke had towards the French Revolution.
One note on the print itself, Reflections had no chapters or distinctions within the text, which made following it difficult.

[Luke · Rating 5 out of 5]

An excellent collection of some essays previously unknown outside the academic world and of course having all of Burke's greatest writings and even some personal letters is just convenient. Excellent to dip in and out of. Notes are well. Everyman is a reliable publisher and this collection entrenches that belief of mine.

Works have been reviewed separately. In the collection contains the unabridged texts of particular significance, so do not worry about an abridged (which often ruins collections) for you shall not find Reflections being abridged for example. For some texts, they have been abridged, but that is generally done because the nature of the collection is political philosophy, not philosophy.

[catinca.ciornei · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such work does not stand to be reviewed; what is our one-to-five-stars rating system to this piece of history, which is laying out what became in time conservative thinking against the world's flamboyant explosions of revolutionary zeal, the French Revolution. One can only read, enjoy and put his mind to bend in hopes to glimpse that amazing time.

[Ayon Bhattacharya]

Excellent, evergreen, and captures the ways in which fanaticism, rootlessness, cynicism, and lust for power can combine with pleasant sounding ideals to lead to unspeakable horrors.

Great book for 2020.

[Aaro Salosensaari · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a sizeable collection of writings by Mr Burke with introduction by Jesse Norman.

First, the 18th century political literary style is wordy and surprisingly difficult to digest. I loathe to confess this, but I would have had much easier time with more lengthy introduction and other context and commentary. (Why I should be interested in any particular letter or essay?)

However, the titular essay and others (eg. private letter to Depont in November 1789, Letter To A Member of The National Assembly, Speech on Conciliation with America) are useful if difficult reading to a reader who wants develop a more thorough understanding of the contemporary political thought during the era of the American and French revolutions. A Vindication of Natural Society works as an cultural intelligence test (I confess I had difficulties realizing it was supposed to a satire of certain kind of Enlightenment-adjacent thought until I read an explanatory comment to that effect).

I have studied only a handful of the works collected in this volume, so won't / can't comment in more detail yet. Will hopefully update review later.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

Only read (& listened to) *Reflections on the Revolution in France* out of the collection. The parts that aren’t particular to the historical context are fantastic!