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Edmund Burke: A Genius Reconsidered
In this, the liveliest and most accessible one-volume life of Edmund Burke, Russell Kirk ingeniously combines into a living whole the private and the public Burke. He gives us a fresh assessment of the great statesman, who enjoys even greater influence today than in his own time.
Russell Kirk was a leading figure in the post-World War II revival of American interest in Edmund Burke. Today, no one who takes seriously the problems of society dares remain indifferent to "the first conservative of our time of troubles." In Russell Kirk’s "Burke’s ideas interest anyone nowadays, including men bitterly dissenting from his conclusions. If conservatives would know what they defend, Burke is their touchstone; and if radicals wish to test the temper of their opposition, they should turn to Burke."
Kirk lucidly unfolds Burke’s philosophy, showing how it revealed itself in concrete historical situations during the eighteenth century and how Burke, through his philosophy, "speaks to our age." This volume makes vivid the four great struggles in the life of his efforts to reconcile England with the American colonies; his involvements in cutting down the domestic power of George III; his prosecution of Warren Hastings, the Governor General of India; and his resistance to Jacobinism, the French Revolution’s "armed doctrine."
In each of these great phases of his public life, Burke fought with passionate eloquence and relentless logic for justice and for the proper balance of order and freedom. With sure instinct born of his sympathy and understanding, Kirk gives us the incisive quotation, the illuminating highlight, the moving, all-too-human elements that bring Burke and his age to vivid life. Thanks to Russell Kirk’s skillful evocations, Edmund Burke in these pages becomes our contemporary. "Because corruption and fanaticism assail our era as sorely as they did Burke’s time, the resonance of Burke’s voice still is heard amidst the howl of our winds of abstract doctrine."
Russell Kirk was a leading figure in the post-World War II revival of American interest in Edmund Burke. Today, no one who takes seriously the problems of society dares remain indifferent to "the first conservative of our time of troubles." In Russell Kirk’s "Burke’s ideas interest anyone nowadays, including men bitterly dissenting from his conclusions. If conservatives would know what they defend, Burke is their touchstone; and if radicals wish to test the temper of their opposition, they should turn to Burke."
Kirk lucidly unfolds Burke’s philosophy, showing how it revealed itself in concrete historical situations during the eighteenth century and how Burke, through his philosophy, "speaks to our age." This volume makes vivid the four great struggles in the life of his efforts to reconcile England with the American colonies; his involvements in cutting down the domestic power of George III; his prosecution of Warren Hastings, the Governor General of India; and his resistance to Jacobinism, the French Revolution’s "armed doctrine."
In each of these great phases of his public life, Burke fought with passionate eloquence and relentless logic for justice and for the proper balance of order and freedom. With sure instinct born of his sympathy and understanding, Kirk gives us the incisive quotation, the illuminating highlight, the moving, all-too-human elements that bring Burke and his age to vivid life. Thanks to Russell Kirk’s skillful evocations, Edmund Burke in these pages becomes our contemporary. "Because corruption and fanaticism assail our era as sorely as they did Burke’s time, the resonance of Burke’s voice still is heard amidst the howl of our winds of abstract doctrine."
300 pages, Paperback
Published December 17, 2009
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About the author
Russell Kirk
185 books305 followersFor more than forty years, Russell Kirk was in the thick of the intellectual controversies of his time. He is the author of some thirty-two books, hundreds of periodical essays, and many short stories. Both Time and Newsweek have described him as one of America’s leading thinkers, and The New York Times acknowledged the scale of his influence when in 1998 it wrote that Kirk’s 1953 book The Conservative Mind “gave American conservatives an identity and a genealogy and catalyzed the postwar movement.”
Dr. Kirk wrote and spoke on modern culture, political thought and practice, educational theory, literary criticism, ethical questions, and social themes. He addressed audiences on hundreds of American campuses and appeared often on television and radio.
He edited the educational quarterly journal The University Bookman and was founder and first editor of the quarterly Modern Age. He contributed articles to numerous serious periodicals on either side of the Atlantic. For a quarter of a century he wrote a page on education for National Review, and for thirteen years published, through the Los Angeles Times Syndicate, a nationally syndicated newspaper column. Over the years he contributed to more than a hundred serious periodicals in the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia, Austria, Germany, Italy, Spain, Bulgaria, and Poland, among them Sewanee Review, Yale Review, Fortune, Humanitas, The Contemporary Review, The Journal of the History of Ideas, World Review, Crisis, History Today, Policy Review, Commonweal, Kenyon Review, The Review of Politics, and The World and I.
He is the only American to hold the highest arts degree (earned) of the senior Scottish university—doctor of letters of St. Andrews. He received his bachelor’s degree from Michigan State University and his master’s degree from Duke University. He received honorary doctorates from twelve American universities and colleges.
He was a Guggenheim Fellow, a senior fellow of the American Council of Learned Societies, a Constitutional Fellow of the National Endowment for the Humanities, and a Fulbright Lecturer in Scotland. The Christopher Award was conferred upon him for his book Eliot and His Age, and he received the Ann Radcliffe Award of the Count Dracula Society for his Gothic Fiction. The Third World Fantasy Convention gave him its award for best short fiction for his short story, “There’s a Long, Long Trail a-Winding.” In 1984 he received the Weaver Award of the Ingersoll Prizes for his scholarly writing. For several years he was a Distinguished Scholar of the Heritage Foundation. In 1989, President Reagan conferred on him the Presidential Citizens Medal. In 1991, he was awarded the Salvatori Prize for historical writing.
More than a million copies of Kirk’s books have been sold, and several have been translated in German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Korean, and other languages. His second book, The Conservative Mind (1953), is one of the most widely reviewed and discussed studies of political ideas in this century and has gone through seven editions. Seventeen of his books are in print at present, and he has written prefaces to many other books, contributed essays to them, or edited them.
Dr. Kirk debated with such well-known speakers as Norman Thomas, Frank Mankiewicz, Carey McWilliams, John Roche, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., Michael Harrington, Max Lerner, Michael Novak, Sidney Lens, William Kunstler, Hubert Humphrey, F. A. Hayek, Karl Hess, Clifford Case, Ayn Rand, Eugene McCarthy, Leonard Weinglass, Louis Lomax, Harold Taylor, Clark Kerr, Saul Alinsky, Staughton Lynd, Malcolm X, Dick Gregory, and Tom Hayden. Several of his public lectures have been broadcast nationally on C-SPAN.
Among Kirk’s literary and scholarly friends were T. S. Eliot, Roy Campbell, Wyndham Lewis, Donald Davidson, George Scott-Moncrieff, Richard Weaver, Max Picard, Ray Bradbury, Bernard Iddings Bell, Paul Roche, James McAuley, Thomas Howard, Wilhem Roepke, Robert Speaight
Dr. Kirk wrote and spoke on modern culture, political thought and practice, educational theory, literary criticism, ethical questions, and social themes. He addressed audiences on hundreds of American campuses and appeared often on television and radio.
He edited the educational quarterly journal The University Bookman and was founder and first editor of the quarterly Modern Age. He contributed articles to numerous serious periodicals on either side of the Atlantic. For a quarter of a century he wrote a page on education for National Review, and for thirteen years published, through the Los Angeles Times Syndicate, a nationally syndicated newspaper column. Over the years he contributed to more than a hundred serious periodicals in the United States, Britain, Canada, Australia, Austria, Germany, Italy, Spain, Bulgaria, and Poland, among them Sewanee Review, Yale Review, Fortune, Humanitas, The Contemporary Review, The Journal of the History of Ideas, World Review, Crisis, History Today, Policy Review, Commonweal, Kenyon Review, The Review of Politics, and The World and I.
He is the only American to hold the highest arts degree (earned) of the senior Scottish university—doctor of letters of St. Andrews. He received his bachelor’s degree from Michigan State University and his master’s degree from Duke University. He received honorary doctorates from twelve American universities and colleges.
He was a Guggenheim Fellow, a senior fellow of the American Council of Learned Societies, a Constitutional Fellow of the National Endowment for the Humanities, and a Fulbright Lecturer in Scotland. The Christopher Award was conferred upon him for his book Eliot and His Age, and he received the Ann Radcliffe Award of the Count Dracula Society for his Gothic Fiction. The Third World Fantasy Convention gave him its award for best short fiction for his short story, “There’s a Long, Long Trail a-Winding.” In 1984 he received the Weaver Award of the Ingersoll Prizes for his scholarly writing. For several years he was a Distinguished Scholar of the Heritage Foundation. In 1989, President Reagan conferred on him the Presidential Citizens Medal. In 1991, he was awarded the Salvatori Prize for historical writing.
More than a million copies of Kirk’s books have been sold, and several have been translated in German, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Korean, and other languages. His second book, The Conservative Mind (1953), is one of the most widely reviewed and discussed studies of political ideas in this century and has gone through seven editions. Seventeen of his books are in print at present, and he has written prefaces to many other books, contributed essays to them, or edited them.
Dr. Kirk debated with such well-known speakers as Norman Thomas, Frank Mankiewicz, Carey McWilliams, John Roche, Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr., Michael Harrington, Max Lerner, Michael Novak, Sidney Lens, William Kunstler, Hubert Humphrey, F. A. Hayek, Karl Hess, Clifford Case, Ayn Rand, Eugene McCarthy, Leonard Weinglass, Louis Lomax, Harold Taylor, Clark Kerr, Saul Alinsky, Staughton Lynd, Malcolm X, Dick Gregory, and Tom Hayden. Several of his public lectures have been broadcast nationally on C-SPAN.
Among Kirk’s literary and scholarly friends were T. S. Eliot, Roy Campbell, Wyndham Lewis, Donald Davidson, George Scott-Moncrieff, Richard Weaver, Max Picard, Ray Bradbury, Bernard Iddings Bell, Paul Roche, James McAuley, Thomas Howard, Wilhem Roepke, Robert Speaight
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December 18, 2020
A modern-day Edmund Burke surveys his intellectual ancestor. Burke was the essence of conservatism and a study of his life shows how far we have fallen.
Burke’s genius was that he never allowed abstract discussions of “rights” to eclipse common sense and the concrete good.
Further, we can’t simply say Burke supported the American Revolution as such. Burke did not support Revolutions. He simply argued that the British policy of taxing the colonies would harm Britain more than it helped her.
It’s difficult to pin down Burke on natural rights. On one hand, he rejected the idea that there were free-floating, abstract things called rights. If there are such things, they are almost impossible to know (and impossible to distinguish from other free-floating rights). He correctly perceived that rights are secure only within a moral nexus of community and transcendence. (both under attack today, which is why everything is a right, unless it is advocated by conservatives).
Burke’s conception of rights was put to the test in India. Burke saw that the Indians were being exploited, yet how could he go about prosecuting the East India Company? They countered that what they were doing to the Hindus was no worse than what had been happening by their own people for thousands of years. (It’s hard to believe in natural rights and dignity and have a caste system). Further, unlike America, India didn’t have a Judeo-Christian common law tradition. This meant that Burke had to fall back on something like universal rights, but this brought him uncomfortably close to Rousseau.
That may be too quick a move,however. Burke’s argument ultimately hinged on his belief in God (thus separating him from Rousseau). If England continued to exploit India, they could no longer claim they were just before God. (This argument wouldn’t work in today’s secular world.)
Natural rights can never be isolated from tradition, which includes both memory of the past and a plurality of social structures today. Among other things, such a natural rights tradition will generate a natural aristocracy (thus separating Burke from radicals like Rousseau).
There are weaknesses and ambiguities in Burke’s thought, to be sure. Nevertheless, he is the standard for which we judge conservatives today. Burke warned against “change for change’s sake,” the perennial temptation for today’s liberal. He would also warn against “importing foreign values” to the rest of the world, the perennial temptation for today’s neoconservative.
On another note, politics aside, Burke should be read simply for the sheer literary delight. He lived in the Age of Johnson and Gibbon and had mastered the art of the near-perfect sentence. Among students of rhetoric, we note that in Burke logos and ethos, style and substance, are united.
Burke’s genius was that he never allowed abstract discussions of “rights” to eclipse common sense and the concrete good.
Further, we can’t simply say Burke supported the American Revolution as such. Burke did not support Revolutions. He simply argued that the British policy of taxing the colonies would harm Britain more than it helped her.
It’s difficult to pin down Burke on natural rights. On one hand, he rejected the idea that there were free-floating, abstract things called rights. If there are such things, they are almost impossible to know (and impossible to distinguish from other free-floating rights). He correctly perceived that rights are secure only within a moral nexus of community and transcendence. (both under attack today, which is why everything is a right, unless it is advocated by conservatives).
Burke’s conception of rights was put to the test in India. Burke saw that the Indians were being exploited, yet how could he go about prosecuting the East India Company? They countered that what they were doing to the Hindus was no worse than what had been happening by their own people for thousands of years. (It’s hard to believe in natural rights and dignity and have a caste system). Further, unlike America, India didn’t have a Judeo-Christian common law tradition. This meant that Burke had to fall back on something like universal rights, but this brought him uncomfortably close to Rousseau.
That may be too quick a move,however. Burke’s argument ultimately hinged on his belief in God (thus separating him from Rousseau). If England continued to exploit India, they could no longer claim they were just before God. (This argument wouldn’t work in today’s secular world.)
Natural rights can never be isolated from tradition, which includes both memory of the past and a plurality of social structures today. Among other things, such a natural rights tradition will generate a natural aristocracy (thus separating Burke from radicals like Rousseau).
There are weaknesses and ambiguities in Burke’s thought, to be sure. Nevertheless, he is the standard for which we judge conservatives today. Burke warned against “change for change’s sake,” the perennial temptation for today’s liberal. He would also warn against “importing foreign values” to the rest of the world, the perennial temptation for today’s neoconservative.
On another note, politics aside, Burke should be read simply for the sheer literary delight. He lived in the Age of Johnson and Gibbon and had mastered the art of the near-perfect sentence. Among students of rhetoric, we note that in Burke logos and ethos, style and substance, are united.
February 12, 2021
Perhaps it is a credit to Mr. Kirk that I came to like his hero less and less throughout the reading of this book. Russell Kirk's lifelong intellectual project depended on Burke's putative greatness. His most popular and influential work, The Conservative Mind puts Burke at the center of all things conservative; he is, to Kirk, the root from which all True Conservatives spring, and against which all must be judged. Men as disparate as John Randolph and Henry Adams find themselves occupying the same intellectual tree (notwithstanding that Adams despised Randolph) all because Kirk finds in them some relation to Burke. And for the past seventy years, to be a conservative is to be a Burkean, for better or for worse.
This biography largely highlights the worse. The best, of course, is Burke's writing itself. He was a master writer and orator, and if Kirk overpraises him in the pantheon of all-time greats, it is not by much. His Reflections on the French Revolution is undoubtedly a work of genius. The passion bursting through all his oratory is a lesson for all attempting to write and speak.
But while his greatest work is good as gold, his life, career, and legacy are marred by his weaknesses of philosophy and character. This biography is largely a record of his career as philosopher and statesman. (The author notes how little of Burke's personal life we are privy to, and that this attempt to hide his deepest self was intentional on Burke's part.) In both realms, Burke was inadequate to the tasks with which he was confronted. The rhetorical fervor that shines through all his speeches will ever be immortal, but the intellectual project Burke, and even more Russell Kirk, tried to build has been kept alive in spite of itself. Those seeking to combat liberal change must look elsewhere for a perennial conservatism, and a biography of Burke as opposed to his writings shows why this is so.
Burke was aware of his genius from the beginning of his career to the end; aware that his faculties could have been applied to any field of endeavor, from the bar to literary journals to Adam Smith's professorship of Moral Philosophy in Edinburgh. His choice to run for (or more accurately, be placed in) Parliament was driven in part by economic necessity, certainly in large part by vanity. It was a place for his genius to shine, a practical medium for his philosophical beliefs and the force of his character.
What was the philosophy? Whiggism. This might be defined as a worship of the events of 1688, a conscious forgetting of anything that happened a century and a half before that date, and a latent ignoring of its necessary effects a century hence. One must ground this fact in the consciousness of every Whig: The Glorious Revolution was a usurpation by oligarchs of a legitimate, humane, and conservative king. If it was more peaceful than 1789, it is only because a king had paid the ransom of blood forty years before. If James II was a tyrant, then Louis XVI was too; by such standard, certainly the Sun King deserved to lose his head. The crux of the matter is that England's last Catholic monarch sought to reorient the constitution of England towards what it had been before a half-century usurpation, theft, and murder begun in earnest under a genuine tyrant, Henry VIII. He did so cautiously and conservatively; he sought to restore to Catholic some of their civil rights and to assert some of the kingly perogratives against the merchant class oppressing the great mass of Englishmen. He was dethroned because he was interested in acting like a king.
It was not until George III that England had another king interested in acting like a king. The freedoms that he planned to bestow on the recently conquered Quebecois were similar to those James would have granted to English Catholics. The sanctions he sought to impose against the disobedient aristocrats in America may have been imprudent, but they were not tyrannical. Chesterton notes that the proper role for a king is as the protector of the great mass of people against the aristocrats; the great fault of English history, to him, was Richard II's failure to defend the people against the mad aristocrats that would soon oppress the people and depose him. From Bolingbroke, King George had a familiarity with this role. It paid off; Kirk notes that the mad and beleaguered George was mourned by the people upon his death. One wonders how he would have been perceived by the royalists in America had the revolution not succeeded. Would they have appreciated the rebellions (Shays, the Whiskey) that needn't have happened?
Against the French regicides, Burke defended the monarchy with fervor and blood. But the monarchy he defended was only a paper one. When one understands this, it makes Burke's entire crusade seem comedic; it is like a man fighting a duel over the honor of a mannequin wife. In his conception, the sovereign of England was still the king--but only in acting through Parliament. His ideal monarch was, indeed, a mere figurehead, a front of legitimacy for a body whose highest accomplishment was the beheading of a king. Burke's particular treatment of George, especially through the regency crisis driven by George's temporary madness, is embarassing, and Kirk elides much of it. His general treatment is simply incoherent. He is a believer in the English constitution of 1790, not because of any principles it is based on (because those principles were based completely on the lies of oligarchs), but because he lives in 1790 England.
The Glory of Europe? Where was this indignation for when the Puritans smashed the churches, the aristocrats plundered the monasteries, Parliament murdered a king and deposed another? Certainly all nations go through ugly political intrigues, but not all nations proudly build their constiutions out of them. Our vaunted "free speech" rights arise in large part out of the "Seven Bishops" case which was a usurpation of the legitimate powers of James II. The attempt to apply moral principles to these usurpations ex post facto constitutes ninety percent of the English philosophical tradition. Burke's attempts to apply this philosophy as a force for counter-revolution can only be based on sentiment, not on principle.
This is Burke the philosopher. Burke the statesmen should not be too praised either. The William Hastings affair is a rhetorical victory for blowhards, but a moral disgrace to Burke and anyone with any scruples towards an overzealous prosecutor. William Hastings oversaw the functions of an increasingly overmatched East India Company, whose political intrigues and invidiousness brought shame to England. Nonetheless, Hastings was mostly free of direct involvement in rank dealings. When he returned to England, he expected to live in quiet retirement. Instead, he was subjected to a witchhunt of eight years' length, all for the vanity of Edmund Burke.
As Kirk makes clear, there was never any chance of conviction after the articles of impeachment had been found, and the matter was transferred to the Peers. In other words, it was a sham prosecution, and the bulk of the proceedings were a show trial led by Burke himself. From a pragmatic perspective, it was not even necessary. Burke was astoundingly correct in saying that colonial rule in India needed reform. And in Pitt's India Act, such reform they got. The matter should have ended there. Instead, Burke continued with nebulous complaints that Hastings had run afoul of the "natural law," an exposing the faults of colonial rule with complaints that should have been kept in Parliament or addressed to the king (not that the Whig would have gone to the man who had most power and incentive to rule India in a way Burke thought just).
This was the height of unscrupulousness. Recourse to the Natural Law in matters of moral philosophy is often instructive. In practical politics, it is mostly incoherent; in the role of the prosecutor it is tyrannical--and this is the role Burke adopted to harass his enemy for nigh a decade. Not even Kirk can put up much of a defense to Burke's ranting here. He notes that Burke's manifest defeat at trial has been awarded the booby prize of being read in classrooms full of future colonial adminstrators. The tedious exercise of finding moral victory in defeat is one Kirk must partake in often, because Burke was so often hopelessly defeated. It is true that defeat in temporal matters should not sour us to just causes, for such causes often fail in the temporal realm not because God sides with the injustice, but because He wants us to understand that temporal matters are not ends in themselves. But Burke took himself to be a practical politician; his battles were not ones forced upon him, but ones he chose. As such, one has a reasonable expectation of him that he not lose all the time. One also has to push back against the notion of the "virtuous loser" which Burke and his conservative acolytes have held out after being summarily quashed by the Left. Whether they know it or not, they are misapplying the Christian principle of sacrifice to the secular sphere. Temporal defeats are not goods in themselves; they are in fact great evils, ones which no sane person would endure if not owed a later victory. When St. Paul, facing martyrdom, could exclaim that he had won his race, he was referring not to the temporal sphere, where he was pathetically defeated, but to the celestial, where a diadem was waiting. He never makes the mistake of thinking temporal defeats are good in themselves; this would be the same error in thinking that temporal benefits can be their own end. But this is not true; the victory was and is in putting temporal things, both good and evil, in their proper place, which is always below the Ultimate Goodness of God.
Burke was fundamentally religious, but only accidentally a Christian. This could be said of all of Burke's most dedicated followers (perhaps of most Anglicans). His confusion of Christian notions with temporal things might be seen as one aspect of the Modernist heresy that had been growing since Craemer. Embracing defeat for its own sake turns one's own suffering into his own reward. The diadem the "lost cause" conservative accepts is bestowed not by the grace of God, but by his own pride. Burke's attempt to be a voice crying in the wilderness of opposition should be derided, not lauded. His last testament, having his body buried in an unmarked grave lest it be exhumed and defiled, a la Cromwell, was an act of cowardice. It showed, without a doubt, how pride and vanity drove him. (The counterexample of another English politician, Thomas More, is instructive: his beheading made it easier to propagate his relics. I was able to touch his jawbone 3,000 miles away from the Tower; if he had "kept his head" who would care if his bones were dust?)
But I repeat: The Hastings trial was a disgrace, and one that should mar our impression of Burke. Let history judge Hastings as it will. But Burke as prosecutor had no right to seek conviction on the vague and specious notions of natural law. I am in no way against the use of Christian Natural Law. I believe Christian Natural Law indeed requires the rule of lenity, which states that where a law is ambiguous, it be read in a way that benefits the defendant. Applying this fundamental rule here, where the law was not only ambiguous but unwritten, Hastings should have never been subjected to any prosecution whatsoever. But Burke carried on his sham prosecution not because he expected success, but he wanted to share his genius with the world. The evil extends beyond his egoism; we might see it in the sham trials of our own day. One can easily think of Nuremberg, where vague recourse to Natural Law effectively negated the legitimacy of any civil government liberals didn't like; this is the necessary implication if "just following orders (i.e. civil law)" is not a defense. Applying the "Natural Law" is so often just a facade thrown over victor's justice; victor's justice which is itself a negation of any universal law besides "might makes right."
Burke's greatness lives in his writings. His fervor is immortal. He is rightly classed amongst the Romantics, and it is no surprise that the poets who survived into old age found such a comrade in Burke and his work. But founding an intellectual program on such a man must be in vain. Comparing Burke to Cicero is apt, for while there are Platonists, Aristotleans, Thomists, there are no Tulliysts. One can admire and emulate Cicero; one cannot act through his works, because he did not lay down enough intellectual grist to bear unique fruits. The same is true of Burke. He was a sophist, not a philosopher. Insofar that he had a philosophy, it derives from a strange brew of Hobbes, Locke, and Anglican divines, all of whom were apologists for liberal change and theft. Burke was prescient and wise, but it was due to his faculty of sense, not an acquired wisdom. Burke remains a literary feast, but true wisdom is better (and more easily) found elsewhere.
This biography largely highlights the worse. The best, of course, is Burke's writing itself. He was a master writer and orator, and if Kirk overpraises him in the pantheon of all-time greats, it is not by much. His Reflections on the French Revolution is undoubtedly a work of genius. The passion bursting through all his oratory is a lesson for all attempting to write and speak.
But while his greatest work is good as gold, his life, career, and legacy are marred by his weaknesses of philosophy and character. This biography is largely a record of his career as philosopher and statesman. (The author notes how little of Burke's personal life we are privy to, and that this attempt to hide his deepest self was intentional on Burke's part.) In both realms, Burke was inadequate to the tasks with which he was confronted. The rhetorical fervor that shines through all his speeches will ever be immortal, but the intellectual project Burke, and even more Russell Kirk, tried to build has been kept alive in spite of itself. Those seeking to combat liberal change must look elsewhere for a perennial conservatism, and a biography of Burke as opposed to his writings shows why this is so.
Burke was aware of his genius from the beginning of his career to the end; aware that his faculties could have been applied to any field of endeavor, from the bar to literary journals to Adam Smith's professorship of Moral Philosophy in Edinburgh. His choice to run for (or more accurately, be placed in) Parliament was driven in part by economic necessity, certainly in large part by vanity. It was a place for his genius to shine, a practical medium for his philosophical beliefs and the force of his character.
What was the philosophy? Whiggism. This might be defined as a worship of the events of 1688, a conscious forgetting of anything that happened a century and a half before that date, and a latent ignoring of its necessary effects a century hence. One must ground this fact in the consciousness of every Whig: The Glorious Revolution was a usurpation by oligarchs of a legitimate, humane, and conservative king. If it was more peaceful than 1789, it is only because a king had paid the ransom of blood forty years before. If James II was a tyrant, then Louis XVI was too; by such standard, certainly the Sun King deserved to lose his head. The crux of the matter is that England's last Catholic monarch sought to reorient the constitution of England towards what it had been before a half-century usurpation, theft, and murder begun in earnest under a genuine tyrant, Henry VIII. He did so cautiously and conservatively; he sought to restore to Catholic some of their civil rights and to assert some of the kingly perogratives against the merchant class oppressing the great mass of Englishmen. He was dethroned because he was interested in acting like a king.
It was not until George III that England had another king interested in acting like a king. The freedoms that he planned to bestow on the recently conquered Quebecois were similar to those James would have granted to English Catholics. The sanctions he sought to impose against the disobedient aristocrats in America may have been imprudent, but they were not tyrannical. Chesterton notes that the proper role for a king is as the protector of the great mass of people against the aristocrats; the great fault of English history, to him, was Richard II's failure to defend the people against the mad aristocrats that would soon oppress the people and depose him. From Bolingbroke, King George had a familiarity with this role. It paid off; Kirk notes that the mad and beleaguered George was mourned by the people upon his death. One wonders how he would have been perceived by the royalists in America had the revolution not succeeded. Would they have appreciated the rebellions (Shays, the Whiskey) that needn't have happened?
Against the French regicides, Burke defended the monarchy with fervor and blood. But the monarchy he defended was only a paper one. When one understands this, it makes Burke's entire crusade seem comedic; it is like a man fighting a duel over the honor of a mannequin wife. In his conception, the sovereign of England was still the king--but only in acting through Parliament. His ideal monarch was, indeed, a mere figurehead, a front of legitimacy for a body whose highest accomplishment was the beheading of a king. Burke's particular treatment of George, especially through the regency crisis driven by George's temporary madness, is embarassing, and Kirk elides much of it. His general treatment is simply incoherent. He is a believer in the English constitution of 1790, not because of any principles it is based on (because those principles were based completely on the lies of oligarchs), but because he lives in 1790 England.
The Glory of Europe? Where was this indignation for when the Puritans smashed the churches, the aristocrats plundered the monasteries, Parliament murdered a king and deposed another? Certainly all nations go through ugly political intrigues, but not all nations proudly build their constiutions out of them. Our vaunted "free speech" rights arise in large part out of the "Seven Bishops" case which was a usurpation of the legitimate powers of James II. The attempt to apply moral principles to these usurpations ex post facto constitutes ninety percent of the English philosophical tradition. Burke's attempts to apply this philosophy as a force for counter-revolution can only be based on sentiment, not on principle.
This is Burke the philosopher. Burke the statesmen should not be too praised either. The William Hastings affair is a rhetorical victory for blowhards, but a moral disgrace to Burke and anyone with any scruples towards an overzealous prosecutor. William Hastings oversaw the functions of an increasingly overmatched East India Company, whose political intrigues and invidiousness brought shame to England. Nonetheless, Hastings was mostly free of direct involvement in rank dealings. When he returned to England, he expected to live in quiet retirement. Instead, he was subjected to a witchhunt of eight years' length, all for the vanity of Edmund Burke.
As Kirk makes clear, there was never any chance of conviction after the articles of impeachment had been found, and the matter was transferred to the Peers. In other words, it was a sham prosecution, and the bulk of the proceedings were a show trial led by Burke himself. From a pragmatic perspective, it was not even necessary. Burke was astoundingly correct in saying that colonial rule in India needed reform. And in Pitt's India Act, such reform they got. The matter should have ended there. Instead, Burke continued with nebulous complaints that Hastings had run afoul of the "natural law," an exposing the faults of colonial rule with complaints that should have been kept in Parliament or addressed to the king (not that the Whig would have gone to the man who had most power and incentive to rule India in a way Burke thought just).
This was the height of unscrupulousness. Recourse to the Natural Law in matters of moral philosophy is often instructive. In practical politics, it is mostly incoherent; in the role of the prosecutor it is tyrannical--and this is the role Burke adopted to harass his enemy for nigh a decade. Not even Kirk can put up much of a defense to Burke's ranting here. He notes that Burke's manifest defeat at trial has been awarded the booby prize of being read in classrooms full of future colonial adminstrators. The tedious exercise of finding moral victory in defeat is one Kirk must partake in often, because Burke was so often hopelessly defeated. It is true that defeat in temporal matters should not sour us to just causes, for such causes often fail in the temporal realm not because God sides with the injustice, but because He wants us to understand that temporal matters are not ends in themselves. But Burke took himself to be a practical politician; his battles were not ones forced upon him, but ones he chose. As such, one has a reasonable expectation of him that he not lose all the time. One also has to push back against the notion of the "virtuous loser" which Burke and his conservative acolytes have held out after being summarily quashed by the Left. Whether they know it or not, they are misapplying the Christian principle of sacrifice to the secular sphere. Temporal defeats are not goods in themselves; they are in fact great evils, ones which no sane person would endure if not owed a later victory. When St. Paul, facing martyrdom, could exclaim that he had won his race, he was referring not to the temporal sphere, where he was pathetically defeated, but to the celestial, where a diadem was waiting. He never makes the mistake of thinking temporal defeats are good in themselves; this would be the same error in thinking that temporal benefits can be their own end. But this is not true; the victory was and is in putting temporal things, both good and evil, in their proper place, which is always below the Ultimate Goodness of God.
Burke was fundamentally religious, but only accidentally a Christian. This could be said of all of Burke's most dedicated followers (perhaps of most Anglicans). His confusion of Christian notions with temporal things might be seen as one aspect of the Modernist heresy that had been growing since Craemer. Embracing defeat for its own sake turns one's own suffering into his own reward. The diadem the "lost cause" conservative accepts is bestowed not by the grace of God, but by his own pride. Burke's attempt to be a voice crying in the wilderness of opposition should be derided, not lauded. His last testament, having his body buried in an unmarked grave lest it be exhumed and defiled, a la Cromwell, was an act of cowardice. It showed, without a doubt, how pride and vanity drove him. (The counterexample of another English politician, Thomas More, is instructive: his beheading made it easier to propagate his relics. I was able to touch his jawbone 3,000 miles away from the Tower; if he had "kept his head" who would care if his bones were dust?)
But I repeat: The Hastings trial was a disgrace, and one that should mar our impression of Burke. Let history judge Hastings as it will. But Burke as prosecutor had no right to seek conviction on the vague and specious notions of natural law. I am in no way against the use of Christian Natural Law. I believe Christian Natural Law indeed requires the rule of lenity, which states that where a law is ambiguous, it be read in a way that benefits the defendant. Applying this fundamental rule here, where the law was not only ambiguous but unwritten, Hastings should have never been subjected to any prosecution whatsoever. But Burke carried on his sham prosecution not because he expected success, but he wanted to share his genius with the world. The evil extends beyond his egoism; we might see it in the sham trials of our own day. One can easily think of Nuremberg, where vague recourse to Natural Law effectively negated the legitimacy of any civil government liberals didn't like; this is the necessary implication if "just following orders (i.e. civil law)" is not a defense. Applying the "Natural Law" is so often just a facade thrown over victor's justice; victor's justice which is itself a negation of any universal law besides "might makes right."
Burke's greatness lives in his writings. His fervor is immortal. He is rightly classed amongst the Romantics, and it is no surprise that the poets who survived into old age found such a comrade in Burke and his work. But founding an intellectual program on such a man must be in vain. Comparing Burke to Cicero is apt, for while there are Platonists, Aristotleans, Thomists, there are no Tulliysts. One can admire and emulate Cicero; one cannot act through his works, because he did not lay down enough intellectual grist to bear unique fruits. The same is true of Burke. He was a sophist, not a philosopher. Insofar that he had a philosophy, it derives from a strange brew of Hobbes, Locke, and Anglican divines, all of whom were apologists for liberal change and theft. Burke was prescient and wise, but it was due to his faculty of sense, not an acquired wisdom. Burke remains a literary feast, but true wisdom is better (and more easily) found elsewhere.
July 31, 2022
I would probably refer to myself as a ‘Burke to Kirk conservative’. Both men were traditional, principled, and prudent. Both were undoubtedly geniuses. And so when the latter writes a full-length biography about the former, the book makes for most gratifying reading!
July 8, 2020
“Thus arose the “armed doctrine,“ an inverted religion, employing central political power and strength of arms to enforce conformity to its “rational“ creed. Through destruction of ancient institutions and beliefs, the way must be cleared to Utopia. Since Burke’s day, the label “ideology“ has been affixed to what he called “the armed doctrine“ - political fanaticism, promising general redemption and idyllic general happiness to be achieved through radical social alteration.
But Utopia will never be found here below, Burke knew; politics is the art of the possible, not of perfectibility. We will never be as gods. Improvement is the work of slow exploration and persuasion, never unfixing old interests at once. Mere sweeping innovation is not reform. Once a memorial moral habits are broken by the rash utopian, once the old checks upon will and appetite are discarded, the inescapable sinfulness of human nature asserts itself: and those who aspire to usurp the throne of God find that they have contrived a terrestrial Hell.”
But Utopia will never be found here below, Burke knew; politics is the art of the possible, not of perfectibility. We will never be as gods. Improvement is the work of slow exploration and persuasion, never unfixing old interests at once. Mere sweeping innovation is not reform. Once a memorial moral habits are broken by the rash utopian, once the old checks upon will and appetite are discarded, the inescapable sinfulness of human nature asserts itself: and those who aspire to usurp the throne of God find that they have contrived a terrestrial Hell.”
December 31, 2023
Listened to this on audiobook. Kirk does a fine job of dividing up the key moments of Burke’s career. Burke’s thought came through especially clearly, although now I am interested in learning more about his life beyond politics, as he seemed to live in a way consistent with his political principles.
December 31, 2024
A fine overview of the key political struggles of Burke's career.
It's time to reread some writings from the father of English conservatism.
It's time to reread some writings from the father of English conservatism.
October 13, 2020
“[Burke] enlivened political philosophy by the moral imagination; he shored up Christian doctrine; he stimulated the higher understanding of history; he enriched a English literature by a mastery of prose that makes him the Cicero of his language and nation. And to the modern civil social order, he contributed those principles of ordered freedom, preservation through reform, and justice restraining arbitrary power, which transcend the particular political struggles of his age. Against the fanatic idealogue and the armed doctrine, the great plagues of our time, Burke’s wisdom and Burke’s example remain a powerful bulwark.” (210-11)
February 12, 2016
More of a summary/overview of what others have written about Burke than a true biography, it left me wondering if I was getting Burke or Kirk.
March 27, 2021
I really enjoyed this biography of Burke. I knew Burke from his "Reflections on the Revolution in France", and I had a fuzzy idea that he was supportive of the colonist and the Irish. The full story is much better. Burke was for freedom, justice, and to whatever degree attainable stability. As Kirk states he was a reforming conservative, not a conservative reformer - he left well enough alone and only meddled where he saw a need.
Where did he see the need? In Ireland - where abuse was rampant, money was scarce, and people starved. In the colonies, where bad policies led to bed outcomes, and in India - where men went to degrade themselves for money. Burke did not support revolution anywhere but did support the right of people to a good life. He detested slavery and didn't think the colonies could be allowed representation in parliament until they abolished it. He also fought a long lonely case to impeach a returning Company man from India for his acts there - acts everyone else seemed happy to overlook. For Burke stability required the state to do its job, and its leaders to practice statecraft and put the good of all above their own. He didn't think the Irish rebelled for Catholicism, they rebelled because they were hungry. He warned that India would go the same way.
After reading about his life, his reflections on the French revolution were more of a Swan Song than a name maker.
Where did he see the need? In Ireland - where abuse was rampant, money was scarce, and people starved. In the colonies, where bad policies led to bed outcomes, and in India - where men went to degrade themselves for money. Burke did not support revolution anywhere but did support the right of people to a good life. He detested slavery and didn't think the colonies could be allowed representation in parliament until they abolished it. He also fought a long lonely case to impeach a returning Company man from India for his acts there - acts everyone else seemed happy to overlook. For Burke stability required the state to do its job, and its leaders to practice statecraft and put the good of all above their own. He didn't think the Irish rebelled for Catholicism, they rebelled because they were hungry. He warned that India would go the same way.
After reading about his life, his reflections on the French revolution were more of a Swan Song than a name maker.
October 18, 2020
Amazing biography
October 5, 2022
Was Edmund Burke a genius, and have we given him enough consideration?
Many Americans know little to nothing more about the 18th century statesman than perhaps recognizing his name. But the more philosophically minded, particularly those concerned with conservative political philosophy, harbor something of a reverential regard for Burke.
I should add here for those unacquainted that Edmund Burke (1729-1797) was the father of what we now regard as conservative political philosophy. Born in Dublin, Ireland, Burke served as a member of British Parliament from 1765-1794, during which time he played the man engaging the major issues of his time.
A supporter of the cause of the American colonists in their War for Independence, Burke nevertheless opposed on principle revolutions and revolutionary thinking, preferring instead reform with a view to expedience and the social and national interest.
Just so and for the same reason, Burke strongly denounced the French Revolution on the grounds that it was hubristically and wickedly destroying everything that stood between its instigators and remaking the world in their image without regard for either posterity or the legacy of previous generations.
Speaking personally, I am inclined to agree with Russell Kirk, and liked very much his biography of the man. Edmund Burke was a genius, and we have not given him enough consideration.
For all the revolutionary talk in our day, and questions of what conservatives are for rather than against, and what it is exactly that we mean to conserve when we say we are conservatives, Burke serves as a thoughtful, principled, clarifying resource.
Don’t let the intervening years trick you into thinking we are far removed from the debates in Burke’s day. His ‘Reflections on the Revolution in France’ is as timely now as it was when at its publication Jean-Jacques Rousseau had only been in the grave a mere dozen years. And the reason for this is because the ideas of Rousseau are still very much with us, both in their consequences and in their ideological descendants.
In studying Burke through the lens of Russell Kirk, you will find a man who stood not just firm but forcefully against those ideas. And this is because Burke recognized these ideas the potential for destruction and death of all kinds – including the destruction and death of civilization and its attendant blessings.
Arguing for ordered liberty, Burke understood that human freedom cannot be unlimited and abstract. It has to be tempered with reasonable discipline and restraint in order to live for long or to a fruitful end.
To those wondering what conservatism is or should be about, we do well to study the life and times of Burke, and his response to those times. Indeed, it’s hard to imagine a better way to honor the substance of Burke’s ideas – where they were founded on considering the intentions and lessons learned from previous generations – and incorporating the same into our own plans, purposes, and principles.
For more on 'Edmund Burke: A Genius Reconsidered' by Russell Kirk, check out this episode of The Garrett Ashley Mullet Show podcast.
https://thegarrettashleymulletshow.co...
Many Americans know little to nothing more about the 18th century statesman than perhaps recognizing his name. But the more philosophically minded, particularly those concerned with conservative political philosophy, harbor something of a reverential regard for Burke.
I should add here for those unacquainted that Edmund Burke (1729-1797) was the father of what we now regard as conservative political philosophy. Born in Dublin, Ireland, Burke served as a member of British Parliament from 1765-1794, during which time he played the man engaging the major issues of his time.
A supporter of the cause of the American colonists in their War for Independence, Burke nevertheless opposed on principle revolutions and revolutionary thinking, preferring instead reform with a view to expedience and the social and national interest.
Just so and for the same reason, Burke strongly denounced the French Revolution on the grounds that it was hubristically and wickedly destroying everything that stood between its instigators and remaking the world in their image without regard for either posterity or the legacy of previous generations.
Speaking personally, I am inclined to agree with Russell Kirk, and liked very much his biography of the man. Edmund Burke was a genius, and we have not given him enough consideration.
For all the revolutionary talk in our day, and questions of what conservatives are for rather than against, and what it is exactly that we mean to conserve when we say we are conservatives, Burke serves as a thoughtful, principled, clarifying resource.
Don’t let the intervening years trick you into thinking we are far removed from the debates in Burke’s day. His ‘Reflections on the Revolution in France’ is as timely now as it was when at its publication Jean-Jacques Rousseau had only been in the grave a mere dozen years. And the reason for this is because the ideas of Rousseau are still very much with us, both in their consequences and in their ideological descendants.
In studying Burke through the lens of Russell Kirk, you will find a man who stood not just firm but forcefully against those ideas. And this is because Burke recognized these ideas the potential for destruction and death of all kinds – including the destruction and death of civilization and its attendant blessings.
Arguing for ordered liberty, Burke understood that human freedom cannot be unlimited and abstract. It has to be tempered with reasonable discipline and restraint in order to live for long or to a fruitful end.
To those wondering what conservatism is or should be about, we do well to study the life and times of Burke, and his response to those times. Indeed, it’s hard to imagine a better way to honor the substance of Burke’s ideas – where they were founded on considering the intentions and lessons learned from previous generations – and incorporating the same into our own plans, purposes, and principles.
For more on 'Edmund Burke: A Genius Reconsidered' by Russell Kirk, check out this episode of The Garrett Ashley Mullet Show podcast.
https://thegarrettashleymulletshow.co...
May 3, 2020
Much more detailed and easier to read than The Great Debate. Shows how Burke founded conservative thought in the modern world.
September 12, 2021
I never could have imagined how much I would love Burke until I listened to this book. Narrated by the extraordinary Jeff Riggenbach, Burke is among the rarest of rarities -- an honest politician. Edmund Burke is a man who has completely devoted his life to politics, and to conservatism. In fact, to a large degree, when we say conservatism nowadays, we usually mean Burkean conduct.
Edmund Burke is such an astounding and important philosopher because he constantly reminded the people that government is not the solution. That we shouldn't follow the isms of the day blindly. That we should understand what we are talking about. He exposed Rousseau's philosophy to what it really is: Fraudulent philosophy. A shallow philosophy that is barely comprehensible, that doesn't say anything useful save for some ringing and flashing slogans that aim to substitute the real world which we live in by the figments of the philosophers' imaginations. Burke reminds us of Guanilo's reply: Imagining something to exist does not warrant its existence! Burke explains to Rousseau and his followers why their schemes won't work, why they are evil men who will stop at nothing before realizing their strange and corrupt ideals, by imagining equilibrium situations which no one has ever experienced to be the norm if only man was not so corrupt. He shows us why the world is not riddled with problems because the wrong unidealistic men have authority, but because we sacrifice the real for the garbled half-digested ideas that our imaginations have brought stillborn. Finally, I loved the bit where Burke admonishes Thomas Paine for his writing that is equally driven by personal issues and political drivel. It's like Burke tells his friend and supporter, Paine: "That's all really very nice, but can't you see why this does not mean anything?!"
Edmund Burke is the most needed thinker today to save us from our ideological inclinations and our intellectual perversions.
Edmund Burke is such an astounding and important philosopher because he constantly reminded the people that government is not the solution. That we shouldn't follow the isms of the day blindly. That we should understand what we are talking about. He exposed Rousseau's philosophy to what it really is: Fraudulent philosophy. A shallow philosophy that is barely comprehensible, that doesn't say anything useful save for some ringing and flashing slogans that aim to substitute the real world which we live in by the figments of the philosophers' imaginations. Burke reminds us of Guanilo's reply: Imagining something to exist does not warrant its existence! Burke explains to Rousseau and his followers why their schemes won't work, why they are evil men who will stop at nothing before realizing their strange and corrupt ideals, by imagining equilibrium situations which no one has ever experienced to be the norm if only man was not so corrupt. He shows us why the world is not riddled with problems because the wrong unidealistic men have authority, but because we sacrifice the real for the garbled half-digested ideas that our imaginations have brought stillborn. Finally, I loved the bit where Burke admonishes Thomas Paine for his writing that is equally driven by personal issues and political drivel. It's like Burke tells his friend and supporter, Paine: "That's all really very nice, but can't you see why this does not mean anything?!"
Edmund Burke is the most needed thinker today to save us from our ideological inclinations and our intellectual perversions.
December 16, 2024
Burke was an extraordinary 18th century intellectual whose influence shaped conservative thought in Europe and the USA. Beyond his philosophical excursions, he was a proponent of human rights in the American and India colonies.
Kirk’s biographical sketch is light on personal details, focusing primarily on Burke’s public life and prodigious writings. Yet, his considerable skills as an author are on full display.
The book probes how Burke’s prescient views on the destructive French Revolution and its subsequent social upheaval have proven insightful. Furthermore, Burke’s views on government officials as public servants is presented as evidence of his forward thinking for the monarchal era. On many levels, the religious orientation and lofty personal principles distinguished this statesman as one of the great Irish luminaries.
Kirk’s biographical sketch is light on personal details, focusing primarily on Burke’s public life and prodigious writings. Yet, his considerable skills as an author are on full display.
The book probes how Burke’s prescient views on the destructive French Revolution and its subsequent social upheaval have proven insightful. Furthermore, Burke’s views on government officials as public servants is presented as evidence of his forward thinking for the monarchal era. On many levels, the religious orientation and lofty personal principles distinguished this statesman as one of the great Irish luminaries.
November 22, 2025
I read the 1967 edition of this book, without the preface by Roger Scruton. It is a very readable biography of the man, structured around the main political fights of his life, concerning the American colonies, the prosecution of Warren Hastings, Ireland and the Jacobin Revolution in France.
Kirk famously regarded Burke as the founder of the brand of conservatism he identified with, now called "traditional conservatism", and is therefore very laudatory, though not uncritical, of him (for instance, he thinks Burke's obsession with Hastings was excessive, and there were even worse men than Hastings in India.)
Among the things I found fascinating in this book was that one of Burke's greatest prides was a fight he lost. I was also astounded by the description of the Gordon riots of 1780.
Kirk famously regarded Burke as the founder of the brand of conservatism he identified with, now called "traditional conservatism", and is therefore very laudatory, though not uncritical, of him (for instance, he thinks Burke's obsession with Hastings was excessive, and there were even worse men than Hastings in India.)
Among the things I found fascinating in this book was that one of Burke's greatest prides was a fight he lost. I was also astounded by the description of the Gordon riots of 1780.
February 16, 2023
Perhaps I am not in the right mindset to be reading such a book right now, but it seems that the book was much too dry to be describing the life of such an extraordinary man. Though it provides amble details on Burke’s life and certainly will expand the knowledge of any Burke admirer, it will not do so in a way which captivates your attention.
Although, one cannot ignore the magnitude this biography has had since it’s release in redefining modern conservatism around Burkean philosophy and reviving Burkes political and philosophical influences as a statesman more broadly.
Although, one cannot ignore the magnitude this biography has had since it’s release in redefining modern conservatism around Burkean philosophy and reviving Burkes political and philosophical influences as a statesman more broadly.
July 15, 2023
The author shows how Burke "speaks to our age" in this short but excellent biography. The book focuses in particular on Burke's effort to promote conciliation with the colonies, his arguments against the Jacobinism of the French, and other political struggles. The resulting explication of his thought suggests a relevancy to our current political experience.
September 8, 2023
Nesse clássico conservador de 1967, Kirk escreve uma magistral biografia intelectual de Burke. Kirk trata dos quatro temas do pensamento de Burke em sua vida pública: a Revolução Americana, a reforma do sistema partidário e oposição ao governo, os assuntos da Índia, e a Revolução Francesa. Um clássico conservador indispensável.
January 12, 2020
A fascinating bio by Kirk, and one that includes the observations of people like Frances Burney, Boswell & Johnson besides the expected political ones. The American and Indian forays by Burke as well were enlightening. Enjoyed.
October 10, 2022
Nice to read about an anti-enlightenment 18th century figure. I'm keen to learn more about Burke. Not sure if this is the best introduction: it assumes a lot of knowledge of the era. I did it as an audio book which didn't work very well, it's too dense.
July 16, 2017
Mais do que a biografia, o livro contém estudos sobre a influência de Burke no conservadorismo americano e brasileiro, além de outros estudos sobre Kirk.
January 14, 2018
Kirk is a great writer and thinker. His presentation of Burke's principles is elucidating. His writing is poetic.
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September 10, 2019A helpful brief overview of Burke’s life and thought. I listened to this as an audiobook.
December 31, 2020
Great author; great subject.
April 22, 2021
Excelente biografia do considerado pai do conservadorismo moderno.
January 12, 2022
A great biography.
August 19, 2022
Straightforward positive bio of Burke. Very wordy, you will need a large vocab or a dictionary. If you do not know English history many of the players here will be unknown.
March 16, 2024
A very worthwhile book! Loved learning more about this great man.
March 26, 2021
Mar 2021. I'm interested in the author as well as the subject.
August 23, 2013
Disjointed and difficult to follow. Enlightening nevertheless - found it interesting how Catholics were feared or hated or looked at with disdain and I've noticed the same in movies and other books since then. Commentary on French Revolution and jacobin also reinforced reading of Tale of Two Cities. This reinforces my pleasure in reading two or more different books from or about the same time period to give multi-dimensional points of view on life in those times.
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