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Empire and Revolution: The Political Life of Edmund Burke
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, pressed for constitutional change in Ireland, 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 strips away the accumulated distortions that have marked the reception of his ideas. In the process, it overturns the conventional picture of a partisan of tradition against progress. In place of the image of a backward-looking opponent of popular rights, it presents a multifaceted portrait of one of the most captivating figures in eighteenth-century life and thought. While Burke was a passionately energetic statesman, he was also a deeply original thinker. Empire and Revolution depicts him as a philosopher-in-action who evaluated the political realities of the day through the lens of Enlightenment thought, variously drawing on the ideas of such figures as Montesquieu, Rousseau, and Hume.
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.
In restoring Burke to his original political and intellectual context, this book strips away the accumulated distortions that have marked the reception of his ideas. In the process, it overturns the conventional picture of a partisan of tradition against progress. In place of the image of a backward-looking opponent of popular rights, it presents a multifaceted portrait of one of the most captivating figures in eighteenth-century life and thought. While Burke was a passionately energetic statesman, he was also a deeply original thinker. Empire and Revolution depicts him as a philosopher-in-action who evaluated the political realities of the day through the lens of Enlightenment thought, variously drawing on the ideas of such figures as Montesquieu, Rousseau, and Hume.
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.
1040 pages, Hardcover
First published August 25, 2015
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309 people want to read
About the author
Richard Bourke
21 books9 followersRichard Bourke took his first degree at University College Dublin and completed his PhD at the University of Cambridge. He is currently Professor in the History of Political Thought at Queen Mary College, University of London.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
June 27, 2017
Richard Bourke began developing this history of Edmund Burke’s political thought in 1991. Published in 2015, Empire & Revolution: The Political Life of Edmund Burke uses Burke as a window into the eighteenth century articulations of British imperial power, exploring the way that Burke approached relations between Britain, Ireland, America, India, and France. It's Bourke on Burke in the best way possible.
The book begins with Burke’s boyhood in Ireland, which fascinated me. I hadn't realized that Burke was Irish (never having studied him in any great detail before this). Because of my longstanding interest in Irish history, this helped to put Burke's life in a familiar and interesting frame, and his various experiences of growing up in a family newly converted to Protestantism, then with his Catholic relatives, then at a Quaker school, and, finally, finishing his schooling at a Protestant university helped me to make sense both of Burke's enduring interest in the goals and mechanisms of power, and in his attempts to remain evenhanded and resist tyrannies of all kinds throughout his life.
Though it doesn't look at the intimacies of Burke's personal life in much detail, the narrative does attend to Burke's general situation and his public life, examining his actions, his relationships, and his various political alliances in detail, situating the development of his thought in his daily affairs, and taking up his main publications in a chronological order to trace the trajectory of Burke's attention and the maturing of his thought over the course of his lifetime. The book closes with the challenge of grappling with Burke’s ongoing legacy.
Through all this, the book is beautifully written. Professor Bourke’s long study, attention to detail, and gift for trenchant observation make this a lot of fun to read.
After I read the book, I had the pleasure of interviewing Richard Bourke for the New Books Network. Our conversation ranged over subjects as familiar today as they were in the 1700s, including Burke’s understanding of representative politics as a means of resolving conflicts present in the public at large, struggles between state and corporate power, and the warrant for popular revolution. One thing that he said really struck me, “A career doesn't have the coherence we impose upon it belatedly, but there exist preoccupations that recur and drive our action.” Of course he's right, and it's just these kinds of careful, nuanced observations that make his book such a good one. He is careful to note his own judgements of Burke's life and thought, and at the same time careful to hold fast to the difference between the subjects of our study and the meaning we make from them.
For all of these reasons, and many more, it's a fantastic book. Highly recommended.
The book begins with Burke’s boyhood in Ireland, which fascinated me. I hadn't realized that Burke was Irish (never having studied him in any great detail before this). Because of my longstanding interest in Irish history, this helped to put Burke's life in a familiar and interesting frame, and his various experiences of growing up in a family newly converted to Protestantism, then with his Catholic relatives, then at a Quaker school, and, finally, finishing his schooling at a Protestant university helped me to make sense both of Burke's enduring interest in the goals and mechanisms of power, and in his attempts to remain evenhanded and resist tyrannies of all kinds throughout his life.
Though it doesn't look at the intimacies of Burke's personal life in much detail, the narrative does attend to Burke's general situation and his public life, examining his actions, his relationships, and his various political alliances in detail, situating the development of his thought in his daily affairs, and taking up his main publications in a chronological order to trace the trajectory of Burke's attention and the maturing of his thought over the course of his lifetime. The book closes with the challenge of grappling with Burke’s ongoing legacy.
Through all this, the book is beautifully written. Professor Bourke’s long study, attention to detail, and gift for trenchant observation make this a lot of fun to read.
After I read the book, I had the pleasure of interviewing Richard Bourke for the New Books Network. Our conversation ranged over subjects as familiar today as they were in the 1700s, including Burke’s understanding of representative politics as a means of resolving conflicts present in the public at large, struggles between state and corporate power, and the warrant for popular revolution. One thing that he said really struck me, “A career doesn't have the coherence we impose upon it belatedly, but there exist preoccupations that recur and drive our action.” Of course he's right, and it's just these kinds of careful, nuanced observations that make his book such a good one. He is careful to note his own judgements of Burke's life and thought, and at the same time careful to hold fast to the difference between the subjects of our study and the meaning we make from them.
For all of these reasons, and many more, it's a fantastic book. Highly recommended.
Want to read
November 14, 2016It is possible that I'm gonna translate this one.
November 18, 2018
Finished! At long last!
This is a lengthy, thorough, well-written and impressive achievement of a book. Richard Bourke's greatest force lies maybe in the fact that he takes Burke seriously, and that he tries to re-construct the coherence behind his political thinking (from the advocate of the American rebellion to the defender of the Indians' rights against Hastings and the East India Company to the counter-revolutionary author of the Reflections on the Revolution of France) and in so doing provides us with a heretofore missing insight into the mind of what was perhaps the greatest political thinker of his generation. Bourke's bibliography is extensive and seemingly exhaustive.
So why only four stars?
My reservations come from two directions. First, Bourke is clearly trying to rehabilitate Burke as a representative of the Enlightenment, which he certainly was, but he also tries, in the process, to make him appear as a progressive and refutes the accusation of conservatism, explaining that they have no sense in Burke's context. But what Bourke purposefully pretends to miss is that precisely Burke invented this alliance of liberal whiggism and societal conservatism, with the defence of property as the link between the two, inventing a new political tradition which we can name conservative, and which is so potent, still today, in Britain and elsewhere.
The second is that this is a book of the history of ideas, and it would have been better if Bourke had tried to replace Burke in a more systematic manner in his political networks. He does it a little bit, especially at the beginning (although in a classical vein along the lines of explaining Burke's early influence) and at the end to explain his break with Fox and Sheridan, but had he done it more systematically we would have gained a deeper insight in the complex interplay between political thinking and theory and political machinations and intrigues. Burke's lifelong commitment to liberal capitalism seems clearly to be the result of his own career.
A very important book none the less, but one that does not mean that the life and character of Edmund Burke is entirely rendered intelligible.
This is a lengthy, thorough, well-written and impressive achievement of a book. Richard Bourke's greatest force lies maybe in the fact that he takes Burke seriously, and that he tries to re-construct the coherence behind his political thinking (from the advocate of the American rebellion to the defender of the Indians' rights against Hastings and the East India Company to the counter-revolutionary author of the Reflections on the Revolution of France) and in so doing provides us with a heretofore missing insight into the mind of what was perhaps the greatest political thinker of his generation. Bourke's bibliography is extensive and seemingly exhaustive.
So why only four stars?
My reservations come from two directions. First, Bourke is clearly trying to rehabilitate Burke as a representative of the Enlightenment, which he certainly was, but he also tries, in the process, to make him appear as a progressive and refutes the accusation of conservatism, explaining that they have no sense in Burke's context. But what Bourke purposefully pretends to miss is that precisely Burke invented this alliance of liberal whiggism and societal conservatism, with the defence of property as the link between the two, inventing a new political tradition which we can name conservative, and which is so potent, still today, in Britain and elsewhere.
The second is that this is a book of the history of ideas, and it would have been better if Bourke had tried to replace Burke in a more systematic manner in his political networks. He does it a little bit, especially at the beginning (although in a classical vein along the lines of explaining Burke's early influence) and at the end to explain his break with Fox and Sheridan, but had he done it more systematically we would have gained a deeper insight in the complex interplay between political thinking and theory and political machinations and intrigues. Burke's lifelong commitment to liberal capitalism seems clearly to be the result of his own career.
A very important book none the less, but one that does not mean that the life and character of Edmund Burke is entirely rendered intelligible.
September 3, 2024
Actually, I read the Chinese version, but the translation is so terrible that I downloaded an original version, too. In general, this is a very comprehensive and informative book outlining Burke's works, ideas, and political activities. It is not an ordinary biography, which means that it mentions little about Burke's life or other aspects. I especially like the author's extensive comparison and quotations of other thinkers, which add an intellectual context to Burke's ideas.
I recalled an anecdote from Russell Kirk: someone remarked that "the only difference between Edmund Burke and T. S. Eliot is that Eliot is a democrat and Burke was not." But Eliot argued that Burke was more democratic than he was. True!
One curious aspect that attracts me is Burke's imagination, which, in my opinion, is one of those qualities that resemble conservatism most. He believed in the power of beauty, magnificence, and awe as a counteract against disenchantment, to borrow Max Weber's concept. "The Crown of Great Britain cannot, in my opinion, be too magnificent." It was because Burke supported an unequal and graded society, and the method to combat the inevitable envy was social admiration and aesthetic appreciation of social beauty. Sublimity, elegance, good manners, and taste--the "pleasing illusion"--of the upper class eased the tension in the social order. On the other hand, he thought that social standing could impose a sense of responsibility: "An awareness of one's position between ancestry and posterity induced a consciousness of accountability."
His moral imagination was also illustrated in the trial of Hastings. Knowing that the British public could hardly sympathize with the Indian people, he had to apply all his "wild imagination" to evoke their sense of charity and humanity. "I impeach him in the name of human nature itself." All these are based on a sort of moral imagination.
One thing I am curious of is Burke’s support of Adam Smith’s laissez-faire. He was against the government's intervention in trade. Free trade and disapproval of the state control to relieve the poor are, in my view, particular traits of liberalism. Although Burke believed in liberalism, such economic opinions were seemingly contradictory to his appeal to human sentiments at first sight. Burke was not a supporter of the paternalist "One-Nation Democracy" of Pitt or Disraeli and was always an ardent advocate of the Whiggism of 1688. I would like to explore this aspect more in the future.
This review only deals with a very tiny part of this book, but I try to choose those parts that are not so typical of Burke's ideas.
I recalled an anecdote from Russell Kirk: someone remarked that "the only difference between Edmund Burke and T. S. Eliot is that Eliot is a democrat and Burke was not." But Eliot argued that Burke was more democratic than he was. True!
One curious aspect that attracts me is Burke's imagination, which, in my opinion, is one of those qualities that resemble conservatism most. He believed in the power of beauty, magnificence, and awe as a counteract against disenchantment, to borrow Max Weber's concept. "The Crown of Great Britain cannot, in my opinion, be too magnificent." It was because Burke supported an unequal and graded society, and the method to combat the inevitable envy was social admiration and aesthetic appreciation of social beauty. Sublimity, elegance, good manners, and taste--the "pleasing illusion"--of the upper class eased the tension in the social order. On the other hand, he thought that social standing could impose a sense of responsibility: "An awareness of one's position between ancestry and posterity induced a consciousness of accountability."
His moral imagination was also illustrated in the trial of Hastings. Knowing that the British public could hardly sympathize with the Indian people, he had to apply all his "wild imagination" to evoke their sense of charity and humanity. "I impeach him in the name of human nature itself." All these are based on a sort of moral imagination.
One thing I am curious of is Burke’s support of Adam Smith’s laissez-faire. He was against the government's intervention in trade. Free trade and disapproval of the state control to relieve the poor are, in my view, particular traits of liberalism. Although Burke believed in liberalism, such economic opinions were seemingly contradictory to his appeal to human sentiments at first sight. Burke was not a supporter of the paternalist "One-Nation Democracy" of Pitt or Disraeli and was always an ardent advocate of the Whiggism of 1688. I would like to explore this aspect more in the future.
This review only deals with a very tiny part of this book, but I try to choose those parts that are not so typical of Burke's ideas.
January 23, 2024
Rigorously researched. Very enjoyable, particularly reading of Burkes time as an undergraduate.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews