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The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 02 (of 12) is presented here in a high quality paperback edition. This popular classic work by Edmund Burke is in the English language. If you enjoy the works of Edmund Burke then we highly recommend this publication for your book collection. ... Read more

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The most comprehensive one-volume edition of Burke's writings on politics, history, and culture.

The intellectual wellspring of modern political conservatism, Edmund Burke is also considered a significant figure in aesthetic theory and cultural studies. As a member of the House of Commons during the late eighteenth century, Burke shook Parliament with his powerful defense of the American Revolution and the rights of persecuted Catholics in England and Ireland; his indictment of the English rape of the Indian subcontinent; and, most famously, his denouncement of English Jacobin sympathizers during the French Revolution.

The Portable Edmund Burke is the fullest one-volume survey of Burke's thought, with sections devoted to his writings on history and culture, politics and society, the American Revolution, Ireland, colonialism and India, and the French Revolution. This volume also includes excerpts from his letters and an informative Introduction surveying Burke's life, ideas, and his reception and influence in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

Not meant to be All The Burke You'll Ever Need
I think the 2-star reviewers are missing the point; the "Reflections" are widely available, whereas much of the best of Burke is found in shorter texts that are harder to find.One would expect the editors to favor those texts instead of providing yet another full text of a book that any Burke reader should already have.

(That said, one also suspects that Penguin wants to keep selling its edition of the full "Reflections" ....)

Whatever its faults, there's really no alternative to this volume for the common reader.

Broad but emasculated coverage
"The Portable Edmund Burke" is useful in supplying a number of pieces not otherwise easily obtainable.It, like most books in the Viking Portable Library series, is missing the notes and especially the index that many people would have found useful. To make room for the 47 selections, several have been severely abridged."Reflections on the Revolution is France" is whittled to leave only about 30% of it.Anyone needing this should look to a full-length treatment. Good ones include the Yale edition of Frank M. Turner, which has an excellent index, occasional notes, and several first-class essas; and Oxford World's Classic edition of L.G. Mitchell, which also has a helpful index and good notes. The speech on conciliation with America is similar chopped to a mere shadow of itself.The Lamont edition is not easily obtainable, which is a pity,but the notes and index of the Cambridge edition of Ian Harris will do well enough for most students. 'A Vindication of Natural Society' survives better (about half of it survives in this edition), but again the Harris edition is a better choice.

If you want a wide picture of Burke's writing, this text is probably for you.If you want to read any of his important texts, then choose something else.

Amputated rather than edited...
Burke's most important work "Reflections on the Revolution in France" is reduced from nearly 200 pages to 60 pages in this volume.Yet nowhere in the book does the editor describe what he selected or what he dropped, or the basis for his decisions.

Comparing my copy of "Reflections.." to this chopped version I found that Kramnick had dropped passages that were highly insightful.

When I discovered this, I could no longer be confident that the other works were not similarly mangled.I will now search for an anthology of works that is more respectful of the originals (or at least one where the editor is more open about his approach).

Thematic is best
Presenting Edmund Burke thematically is perhaps the only way to really approach Burke, as Conor Cruise O'Brien or Russell Kirk (Burke's best biographers) would probably agree. So unlike `On Empire, Liberty, and Reform,' which is chronological, the portable Edmund Burke instead tackles Burke under the themes of America, Ireland, India, and the French Revolution, and a couple other sub-themes, with invaluable commentary. By the end of the book, Burke is better enveloped here than in most biographies, HIGHLY RECOMMENDED! ... Read more

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Kirk ingeniously combines four great struggles in the life of renowned 18th-century British statesman Edmund Burke. 6 cassettes. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (4)

excellent overview of Burke's life & work
Edmund Burke is a philosopher & politician who needs to get more visibility, 200 years after his death I mean.His thought was key to British institutional & political thought during the time of the American and French Revolutions (often contrary to mainstream thought in Parliament and King George III, however).This book does a nice job providing an overview, one that is not too heavy-handed philosophically, and not so light-handed as popular history.A nice compromise.It is a good introduction and can lead the reader to other works about the period and about Burke.I am not quite clear on a previous reviewer's comment that the work was unbalanced in terms of covering only Burke's good qualities and not his bad ones.That individual must have read a different work than I did.

Well Worth Every Penny
In this easy to read volume Russell Kirk provides a succinct biography of "the first conservative of our time of troubles."Burke's political philosophy is clearly explained and Kirk introduces the reader to Edmund Burke the man.

The book basically deals with the four major issues of Burke's life: his resistance to Jacobinism, England's relationship with the American Colonies, the prosecution of Warren Hastings, and the stifling of George III's domestic authority.Kirk provides wonderful quotes throughout the book and thorough, balanced analysis.

Those looking for a critical assessment of Burke will not find it here, as Kirk, the great conservative thinker of our time, was a proponent of Burke and felt that his voice was stillapplicable in today's political climate.However, this does not compromise the integrity of this volume.

This book is a must read for anyone interested in political theory, politics, and/or history.

A Well-written Panegyric
Edmund Burke deserves better than this biography.The author Russell Kirk is full of admiration for Burke, but his unqualified praise of his subject is more deserving of a 19th century hagiography than it is a modern work.At no point in the book that I can remember does Kirk ever put anything but the most positive spin on the 18th century statesman/philosopher's actions.Burke is undoubtedly everything Kirk claims -- a great man, a genius, and his influence in both England and the United States largely underestimated - but even the greatest and wisest of men have blind spots and moments of weakness.Was Burke perhaps overzealous in his sixteen-year pursuit of Warren Hastings?Did Burke hide his Irish Catholic roots out of fear for what they could do to his ambitions if brought out in the open?Was his political philosophy less than consistent?Not according to Kirk.

Edmund Burke: A Genius Reconsidered" does have its good points.It's well-written -- far more accessible than the Conor Cruise O'Brien biography "The Great Melody".(To be fair to O'Brien, his biography is not a straightforward work, but presents Burke's life thematically.)Kirk's book also makes some valid points about Burke's legacy, convincing the reader that Burke's philosophy is underappreciated by modern audiences.But a more balanced approach to Burke's life - without all the Great Man gloss -- would have made this point just as effectively.

Great Introduction to Burke
Kirk's introduction to the life and politics of Burke is essential to understanding Edmund Burke in his time and ours. More of a Political biography than a general biography, it is still a book whose prose is very readable and understandable. A biography of a great man by a great man. ... Read more

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The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 07 (of 12) is presented here in a high quality paperback edition. This popular classic work by Edmund Burke is in the English language. If you enjoy the works of Edmund Burke then we highly recommend this publication for your book collection. ... Read more

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

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The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 05 (of 12) is presented here in a high quality paperback edition. This popular classic work by Edmund Burke is in the English language. If you enjoy the works of Edmund Burke then we highly recommend this publication for your book collection. ... Read more

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This new and up-to-date edition of a book that has been central to political philosophy, history, and revolutionary thought for two hundred years offers readers a dire warning of the consequences that follow the mismanagement of change. Written for a generation presented with challenges of terrible proportions--the Industrial, American, and French Revolutions, to name the most obvious--Burke's Reflections of the Revolution in France displays an acute awareness of how high political stakes can be, as well as a keen ability to set contemporary problems within a wider context of political theory. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Awesome service and fast delivery.
The service of the book owner was fast and the shipment was at my doorstep the next day just in time for my midterm. :D

Burke's Famous Thoughts on the French Revolution
"Reflections on the Revolution in France" is Edmund Burke's famous denunciation of the French Revolution.Burke opposed the Revolution because the French tried to reform society by completely breaking with their past, rather than by attempting in a gradual manner to reform and improve their existing institutions.

Burke was not opposed to all change, when it righted grievous wrongs and was in line with a country's culture and institutions--he did support the American Revolution, which our Founding Fathers believed was a revolution against "a long train of abuses" leading to "absolute despotism".Burke also believed that no factions in society "should be brought to regard any of the others as their proper prey".This led him to support the abolition of both slavery and the slave trade.

Given that Burke supported abolition when he lived, he almost certainly would have done so had he been a nineteenth-century American.For that matter, if the non-slaveholding yeoman farmers of the antebellum South had refused to be the planters' "prey", if they had simply told the planter class that they would not support secession if the planters attempted it, and had they refused to be cannon fodder merely so the planter class could keep its slaves, perhaps the whole slaveholding system would have imploded without war, and the U.S. could have rid itself of slavery without the cost of more than 600,000 dead and multitudes more maimed.

Many twenty-first century American liberals cynically describe Burkeanism as conservatives treating liberal precedents as sacrosanct, and refer to conservatives who refuse to do so as "not Burkean", "not real conservatives", "nihilists", or "revanchists".What these liberals want is a conservatism that does not fight against or attempt to roll back misguided left-wing initiatives.Again, Burke was not opposed to all change, as he is sometimes portrayed today.If no change is ever permitted, a society is cursed with what Margaret Thatcher referred to as the "ratchet effect"--a society that periodically moves leftward, but never moves rightward to correct liberal mistakes.

Because Burke is so often misrepresented today, it is important to study him as much to determine what he did not believe as to determine what he did believe.Conservatives interested in their intellectual pedigree should read this epic work of political thought at some point in life.

Fascinating historical work
To begin with: this book is a pamphlet, not a treatise. It is a call to action about a specific event, not a political programme (Burke fanatics may maintain it is; but let's not forget he remained a Foxite still, when he wrote this). Readers expecting a statement of the conservative creed may be disappointed. Hence the 4, not 5 stars.

As a historical document, however, the Reflections are invaluable. Burke published his point-by-point assault on the French Revolution in 1790, when the revolution was still widely popular in Britain. He was an English MP and his public, even if the Reflections are formulated as two letters to a French aristocrat, was British political opinion.

First, his book contrasts admirably the gradual, and ultimately more successful, British path to democracy to the French. Indeed the core of his argument is that the revolution laid waste to tradition, depriving its end system of the essential legitimacy that stems from it. Second, Burke was the first to warn - years before the `terror' - that radical change, once initiated, would be exceedingly difficult to stop. Third, he makes penetrating (and scathing) observations on the role of class renegades; his dissection of their motivations is striking and finds application in all situations of political upheaval. Burke's warning on radical change was vindicated not just in France, but repeatedly in Europe through the 19th and early 20th centuries. With respect to the French Revolution, he understood that any stabilisation depended on solving the question of church property, which the revolutionaries were already bungling (one smiles at a British MP springing in defence of the catholic church in the still popular days of `no popery!', but the analysis has to be cold-bloodedly correct).

The only rebuttal to Burke's argument is that the status quo was not an option either. His picture of pre-revolutionary France is on the rosy side; unlike the British, the French monarchy was in deep crisis. Nevertheless, I strongly believe this should be taught in France alongside the more hagiographical stuff. I am French, by the way, and an admirer of the revolution. ... Read more

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The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 04 (of 12) is presented here in a high quality paperback edition. This popular classic work by Edmund Burke is in the English language. If you enjoy the works of Edmund Burke then we highly recommend this publication for your book collection. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (8)

This man is a hack!
This is a piece of trash written by a leftist hack seeking to claim Burke for his own pathetic ideology.If one seeks to understand Burke, he would do well to read Russel Kirk's The Conservative Mind.

Quite a Story
When I read this book ten years ago, I had only a glancing sense of Irish history. I read it to gain some perspective on that history through the eyes of one of Ireland's insightful men of letters. The thesis that Burke was loyal...a constitutional monarchist...in the midst of his own deeply held opposition to British treatment of his own country, was a revelation to me. I did not know this...nor did I know that he extended his loyal opposition to British imperial behavior, to the USA and India.

I felt then...through O'Brien's eyes...that Burke was heroic and extraordinarily far sighted; not to mention politically prudent. I haven't yet changed my opinion, after reading earlier contemporary criticism of Burke's alleged blind conservative monarchism. I think that O'Brien is correct to assert that Burke's action and thought was not that simple and un-nuanced. O'Brien makes a convincing case for Burke's underlying purposes.

These purposes, based upon civilized respect for all parties involved, in such a heated historic dispute....in my very humble opinion....presage the non-violent movements toward independence that eventually bore fruit for India and Ireland.

Conor Cruise O'Brien, himself a civilized man of insight and erudition, paints the "big picture"...a perspective that I think could very well become the definitive version of this pre-history, and of Edmund Burke.

A Scholarly and Tightly Woven Study
"The Great Melody" by Conor Cruise O'Brien is not your traditional biography; there is little here concerning Burke's personal and family life.Instead, the work concentrates on Burke's political career and thought and, specifically, how they relate to his Irish heritage.The result is a fascinating look into the mind and personality of a man who suffered from a conflict of emotions over his Irish heritage that included his father's conversion to Protestantism while his mother and wife remained Catholic.Burke himself was torn in different directions his entire life; loyalty to Britain and also his Irish ancestors and friends suffering under the Penal Laws, loyalty to the British constitution, but also a deep feeling for the need of justice for the oppressed people at home and abroad.

O'Bien's book takes an in-depth look at Burke's career in parliament and as a member of the Whig party through an extensive analysis of his letters, speeches, political relationships, and writings, specifically, as they relate to his struggle on behalf of the American colonists, the struggle of the Irish Catholics, the people of India suffering at the hands of the rapacious East India Co., and the French Revolution.

The work can be a little dry at times and tends to quote in an overly lengthy manner, but the immense erudition and scholarship and the insightful picture of Burke that emerges more than compensate for this.I do wish, however, that O'Brien had spent more time on "Reflections On The Revolution in France," but he feels that since it is so readily available to the reader there is no need. Finally we see an Edmund Burke as he really was and not the "old reactionary" that is so often depicted.We come to understand that Burke always believed that "the people are the true legislator," that Burke did not want to see Americans in Parliament who were slave holders, that he was a life-long opponent of increased powers for the Crown and the corruption such power entailed, that he was one of the few who consistently fought against injustice toward the American colonials, that he found all authoritaianism abhorrent, and that he opposed commercial monopolies and the abuse of power in all its forms.But, because he opposed the overturning of society and its reengineering on the basis of "metaphysical abstractions," he was often portrayed as a reactionary by later pundits.Lewis Namier and his followers are particularly taken to task by O'Brien for this tendency.In the end we see a Burke who always supported basic human rights, but remained constantly aware that real life circumstances must make social and political change possible if such change is not to lead to chaos and violence.Burke's fear of radicalism based upon abstract theory was real and the destructiveness of the French Revolution, the Russian Revolution, and the Nazi bio-racial religion more than sufficiently proves his point.A reading of O'Brien's fine book can only lead the intelligent reader to a renewed respect for a great man, a decent and liberal minded man, and a man of immense vision.

Burke the Cold War Liberal
There is much in O'Brien's book that is interesting, original and insightful.But it suffers from two fatal flaws, one stylistic/structural, one substantive: (1) It is a mess.It is part personal biography, part intellectual biography, part annotated anthology, all mixed together in a confusing and unsatisfactory hodge-podge that may have been deliberate, given Burke's (and therefore O'Brien's) aversion to systems and abstraction.It is as if the author set out with a firm intention to portray Burke a certain way, collected up all the relevant facts, but just couldn't pull it all together in the end.It reads like a work-in-progress, several drafts short of completion and in dire need of a good editor; (2) It seriously overstates its case, and is therefore simply not reliable as an account of Burke's thought.O'Brien's Burke is a pluralist liberal, one of the "good guys" not to be classed among the "reactionaries", as Isaiah Berlin has done.But as Berlin points out--with far too much courtly politeness--in his exchange with O'Brien (reproduced in the appendix), the author has simply turned a blind eye to those aspects of his subject that make him appear illiberal.Most liberals at the time supported the French Revolution, at least in its early phase, and with good reason: it destroyed a confused mass of privilege, injustice and corruption that served the interests of a largely hereditary elite, which Burke vigorously defended.Most liberals since have supported it too.Few (if any) liberals today would hesitate to condemn someone who defended tradition, hereditary privilege and deference to authority as Burke did.To say that Burke was a liberal just doesn't wash.Granted he had SOME liberal tendencies, but he had many other tendencies that liberals have always found repugnant.It is a crude and one-sided portrait.O'Brien subscribes to the old-fashioned Cold War liberalism of Jacob Talmon, who interpreted the struggle between liberal democracy and "totalitarianism" in the 20th Century as a replay of the struggle between liberalism constitutionalism and the Terror.O'Brien's agenda in this book is to accept this dubious and anachronistic framework and to place Burke firmly on the "correct" side in it, with a demonic Rousseau on the other.THE GREAT MELODY was probably out-of-date before O'Brien wrote a word of it, just as much of Burke was when it appeared in the eighteenth century.

Burke is more than a few famous quotes
Everyone knows Edmund Burke's most famous quote: "for evil to triumph, it is only necessary for good men to do nothing". As a former lecturer in political science, I was mainly familiar with Burke as the founder of Anglo-conservatism (infinitely more nuanced and modern than his equivalent in Franco-conservatism, the Count Joseph de Maistre). I had also read an early work, namely "An Enquiry into the nature of the Beautiful and the Sublime", which I thought a brilliant little jewel. But there's much more about Burke than that.

O'Brien, the great man of Irish diplomacy, shows in this extraordinary book that Burke, whom recently history has shown as a fawning servant to the political leaders of his time (Rockingham and Pitt), was at the heart of the great fight between George III's royal absolutism and the emerging English democracy. Burke was on the right side of virtually all the fights he picked. He advocated equality before the law for the Irish subjects of the king, first tolerance and then freedom for the American colonies, the end of the colonialist abuses of the East India company, and a quarantine on the infectious ideas of the French Revolution. The later one is still a contentious affair. Zhou En Lai famously opined that it was still too early (in the 1970s) to judge the French Revolution. Burke would have had none of that. As early as 1790, in the "benign" initial phase of the revolution, he foresaw the Terror, the execution of the Royal Family, the Consulate and the Empire, and the French banner covering all of the Europe, in the name of "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity".

O'Brien shows the extraordinary situation of an Irish Protestant (always accused of crypto-Catholicism) having great informal influence on the politics of Great Britain, while holding menial offices or representing various "rotten boroughs" in Parliament (this is no aspersion on Burke's memory- that's how politics was done at the time, and anything that gave Burke a pulpit couldn't have been all bad). The "Great Melody" of the title provides the underlying themes around which O'Brien organizes the public part of Burke's life. Far from tiresome, this is a useful device that provides unity and coherence to Burke's thoughts and actions. O'Brien's attacks on mid-century historiography are perfectly adequate, given that much of what was written as that period was designed to regress Burke into irrelevancy, as a sycophant and a lackey. He never was that. He was a good and a great man, and O'Brien does him justice in his book. Perhaps the only fault that I could find in it is a tendency to assume the reader's prior knowledge of the arcanes of Irish history. But these are quibbles. If you can stomach a history of ideas, full of events and studded with memorable characters, this is the book for you. ... Read more

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The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 10 (of 12) is presented here in a high quality paperback edition. This popular classic work by Edmund Burke is in the English language. If you enjoy the works of Edmund Burke then we highly recommend this publication for your book collection. ... Read more

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Customer Reviews (4)

A classic, & still relevant (!) to our times
I don't think anyone involved in my education ever required me to read this book, which I find one of the most interesting books of the last 500 years.

As an example of Burke's thinking, let's turn to the "natural rights" of man: "life, liberty, & the pursuit of happiness."The traditional defense of these arguments has been that they derive from God, or from Providence, or from Nature (whatever "Nature" with-a-capital-N might turn out to be!)

But by now, there is an entirely different, Burkean argument for these rights.I can't put the argument with Burke's eloquence, but he would say that these are **American** rights, declared at the founding of our nation, and since then handed down from generation to generation as a priceless birthright, as the proper inheritance of every American citizen.They don't have to "derive" from anywhere except the American political tradition, the American political inheritance, which we should be on constant guard to protect, so that we may hand the same precious birthright on, to our children and grandchildren.

Burke's analysis of the French National Assembly is masterful, and also contains lessons for today.What impressed Burke strongly was the devotion of the revolutionaries to abstract ideas, and the fact that they delivered the government of France into the hands of incompetents.Almost 300 of the 600 were petty lawyers, plus some illiterate peasants and a few merchants --- "and you expect these people to run a government?" Burke would ask, adding, "especially after all legitimate power had been destroyed?"He tellingly notes that NONE of the members of the National Assembly had any experience with government, and so (obviously) they were not up to the task.

Compare and contrast this with the current situation in Washington, where almost none of the appointees or czars has any experience with running a business, much less a government.Burke would be saying, with sarcasm, "Well, what would you expect?"You cannot govern through mere abstractions such as "Hope" and "Change."If you want to deal with the outside world, you need a Secretary of State with some experience in foreign affairs.If you want to help the economy recover from a bad shock, you need some people with experience at doing so.If you want to plug an oil leak, do NOT send out for more professors --- send out for people with experience at plugging oil leaks.

Burke points out a huge list of other problems, such as the mob in Paris demanding that ALL bishops be immediately hung from the lampposts, the endless series of murders, assassinations, and "expropriations" which led France into chaos, and then the Great Terror.By the time Napoleon swings by to pick up the broken pieces, and begin his own career as a murderer of Europeans by the millions, you may at least find yourself wondering whether Edmund Burke was not right: establishing and running a successful government is not a task for children or for ideologues.An essential factor is respect for what has gone before, and the old American attitude of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it."

I recommend this book very highly, and would only caution that it makes for slow reading, because every single sentence is pregnant with thought.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The masterpiece ofmodern conservatism
I cannot believe that noone hasreviewed this.Burke wrote this incredibly farsighted dissection ofthe French Revolution at a point when most English opinion leaders were supportive of that great orgy of sadistic bloodletting. He wrote this in1790 as a reply to a clergyman who was ofcourse a big supporter of the Revolution. Burke dissects the reverend and wasable to foresee the emergence ofa dictator well before the Reign of Terror andRobespierre and of course before anyone had heard ofNapoleon. It includes many memorable phrases such as " the ageof chivalry isdead; the age ofsophists and calculators has begun."Othermemorablephrases living until our times include " the unbought grace of life." Burke is probably the unsurpassedpolitical genius of the last two hundred years. By all means if you want to know the essence of conservatismas prudent reform vs the awful beast ofmillenarian utopian leftism, this is where you muststart. ... Read more

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An eloquent and sometimes even erotic book, the Philosophical Enquiry was long dismissed as a piece of mere juvenilia. However, Burke's analysis of the relationship between emotion, beauty, and art form is now recognized as not only an important and influential work of aesthetic theory, but also one of the first major works in European literature on the Sublime, a subject that has fascinated thinkers from Kant and Coleridge to the philosophers and critics of today. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (5)

Good thoughts
A very interesting enquiry. Each section is virtually a paragraph, so it is easy to find parts of the argument. The book is of a good (material) quality; the paper is nice, the printing is flawless.

If you're interested in the sublime, this book will be a good addition to your library. The author covers a lot of ground in a rather concise manner, which I found enjoyable.

I presume some of the medical knowledge he exposes in his volume is rather out-dated, but never so much as to sound ridiculous.

The punctuation is slightly different from what we would use today, meaning that you'll find commas where we wouldn't place any today, but is not any the less readable for so much.

Other than that, excellent read.

Terribly Sublime
The other reviewers (all three of them) have done a quite thorough job of explaining Burke's book, so small in length, so great in influence.But their thoroughness, in my view, approaches the belaboured, with a bit too much personal spin applied.How this Enquiry relates to "gender studies" is far beyond my ken! So, here is Burke with as little personal embellishment as is within the confines of human presentation:

Burke is very readable, very empirical and free of metaphysical cobwebs.He is very much concerned to treat of this topic - the first to do so since Longinus - and convey himself to the reader as simply as possible.He makes for good reading:

The Sublime, for Burke is: "Whatever is fitted in any sort to excite the ideas of pain, and danger, that is to say, whatever is in any sort terrible, or is conversant about terrible objects, or operates in a manner analogous to terror, is the source of the SUBLIME;" Part 1 Section VII

And, thus,

"Hence proceeds what Longinus has observed of that glorying and sense of inward greatness, that always fills the passages in poets and orators as are sublime; it is what every man must have felt in himself upon such occasions." Part 1 Section XVII

Burke is no mean poet himself in providing us with descriptions and examples:

"It comes upon us in the gloomy forest, and in the howling wilderness, in the form of the lion, the tiger, the panther, or rhinoceros." Part II Section V

One almost sees William Blake putting pen to paper upon reading this excerpt.

Also, Burke, very percipiently to my mind, adds obscurity to what is necessary in the sublime:

"To make any thing very terrible, obscurity seems in general to be necessary." Part II Section III

"In reality, a great clearness helps but little towards affecting the passions, as it is in some sort an enemy to all enthusiasms whatsoever." Part II Section III

This insight had never occurred to me quite so boldly.But on contemplating different phenomena which invoke this feeling in me, I find Burke to be spot on!

Burke's aim here - as one can infer from the title - is to differentiate the sublime from the beautiful, and he does so handily:

"I have observed before that whatever is qualified to cause terror, is a foundation capable of producing the sublime...I observed too, that whatever produces pleasure, positive and original pleasure, is fit to have beauty engrafted on it." Part IVSection III

Burke's ideas were certainly, as is obvious, forerunners of those of the Romantic poets to follow in the next century---or, most of them---Keats doesn't quite fit in here.Also, the book had a tremendous impact upon educated, aristocratic youth of Burke's own day.My own plug here is Jonathan Raban's masterful work,Passage to Juneau, in which Raban follows the path of Captain Vancouver (from which the place name in Canada) and transcribes some of the ship's log which is full of accounts of the aristocratic swells who booked passage, anxious to behold what Burke described, along the northwest coast of North America.What they discovered, without giving too much away, was how terrible indeed the sublime can be!

Our ideas of the sublime and beautiful: Where do they originate?
Burke's Enquiry is a surprising and remarkable little work. If you expect the Burke who fits your stereotype of the conservative Tory politician, that is not what you will find here at all--but rather a clear and insightful discussion of our feelings and emotions of awe and beauty in nature and in art, and especially poetry.

Based on self-observation and reflection, Burke takes a scientific, almost Newtonian approach to the fascinating question of what it is that makes us feel the presence of the sublime and the beautiful.

These are amazing observations for a 28-year-old--remarkable as well because they were written in 1757.Consistent with the 18th Century outlook, he refers to the emotions as "the passions," and it's obvious he's done a good deal of thinking about them.

The sublime, for Burke, is generated by passions connected to self preservation and which "turn on pain and danger. They are simply painful when their causes immediately affect us. They are delightful when we have an idea of pain or danger without being actually in such circumstances. This delight I have not called pleasure because it is different enough from any idea of positive pleasure. Whatever excites this delight, I call sublime."

By beauty, Burke means the quality or qualities in bodies by which they cause love or some passion similar to it.He makes sure to distinguish love from lust or desire. This is quite a different view than the Platonic view of beauty as resonant with eternal forms and ideas.

Burke identifies specific qualities that generate beauty: to be comparatively small, smooth, having parts not angular but melted into one another. He cites the example of a dove as a creature having this beauty.

There is a big difference between admiration and love. The sublime, which is the cause of the former, always dwells on great objects and terror; the latter on small ones and pleasing.

Burke's Enquiry refers almost exclusively to the physical and emotional properties, and he provides many examples of shapes and forms which do or do not evoke the sublime and beautiful--so that we can be clear about what he is talking about. This work is concrete--not at all abstract as one might expect of a philosophical work.

Will today's readers find Burke's work interesting? It's a good bet that many will. The idea of the sublime seems a bit dated, yet it is still with us in great natural scenery, the Grand Canyon, Niagara Falls, etc. And something very much in evidence, for example in the popular photography of Ansel Adams. The concept of beauty in today's popular culture has become so watered down (there's now a beauty "industry," complete with beauty "products") that it should do the contemporary reader good to consider Burke's idea of what true beauty is. There's good reason to hope the idea of beauty in art and poetry may make a comeback--and not be viewed as elitist or aristocratic snobbery.

Oxford's good little edition contains the Introduction on Taste, which Burke added after 1757, and a good chronology and textual notes.

Remember taste? That is something people used to strive to possess. In the tastelessness of this postmodern world, a little consideration of taste would do us all some good.

A Brilliant Enquiry into the Passions of Love and Fear
Edmund Burke's 1757 treatise, "A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful," is a clearly written, well-argued, and variously inflected work of philosophy.Coming out of and contending with the traditions of philosophies of passion, understanding, and aesthetics from Aristotle and Longinus to Descartes, Hobbes to Locke, and Shaftesbury to Hume, Burke would seem to be taking on a world of difficulty at the tender age of 28.However, Burke manages to maintain control and exercise great wit in his treatise by confining his "Enquiry" to the ways we interact with the physical world, and how in this interaction, we formulate our aesthetic ideas of sublimity and beauty.

Burke's "Enquiry" is divided into five parts, with an introduction.The introduction is perhaps his most witty segment, as he tries, as Shaftesbury, Addison, and Hume before him, to formulate a standard of Taste, a popular subject of conjecture in the 18th century.Physically, and not without some irony, he chooses to speak of Taste primarily as a feature of eating.In response to his predecessors, though, he does say that since our attitudes toward the world come from our senses, that the majority of people can see (sight being very important) and react; thus all people are capable of some degree of Taste.Education and experience, he must admit, though, do refine Taste.In Part One, Burke examines the individual and social causes which arouse our sense of the sublime and the beautiful, those being the primal feelings of terror/pain and love/pleasure, respectively.Throughout the "Enquiry," Burke insists that these are not opposites strictly speaking - that pain and pleasure are mediated by a neutral state of indifference, which is the natural state of man.(Compare that idea to Hobbes and Locke!)

Parts Two, Three, and Four find Burke explaining his notion of the passions in relation to his basis of the physical world.Grandeur, potential threat, darkness, and ignorance for Burke excite our nerves and produce the sublime, a feeling of terror which is simultaneously delightful as long as it does not cause immediate pain.These he finds both in the physical world and in tragedies of literature and history.Smallness, softness, clarity, and weakness delimit the beautiful, which produces affection and sympathy.The contrasts and interventions that Burke makes throughout the "Enquiry" on these bases are variously inflected with issues of anxiety over gender roles, race, and power.Burke's politics give the work a joyful and troubling complexity to the literary minded.

Part Five, then, is a look at the effect that words, language, and poetry can have in influencing our affect in regards to the sublime and the beautiful.In it, he gathers together statements he sprinkles throughout the treatise on the nature of poetry - that its emphasis on representation of emotion, rather than imitation of objects, gives it a power that is perhaps unequalled even by nature.In Burke's "Enquiry," one can see a nascent fascination with landscape, mystery, and sensation that would find its flowering in the Gothic and Romantic movements of the late 18th and early 19th centuries.His insistent break with earlier philosphers who combined aesthetics and morality is a serious challenge to moral philosophy with regard to art and Taste.His physical descriptions of emotional response prefigures Freud's psychological ponderings in "Three Essays on Sexuality" and "Beyond the Pleasure Principle," as well as linguistic theory.In all, a fascinating and complicated work for being as short as it is.

This review is dedicated to the memory of Vernon Lau.Unfortunately, Burke did not deal in the "Enquiry" with the pain or terror of immediate personal loss.One can only wonder if Burke's obsession with philosophical distance between people and fear wasn't motivated by a loss of his own.

A thoughtful look at what we can't define...and taste.
Burke points out the things all around us that we take for granted but which really are absolutely amazing in his discourse on the sublime.A galloping stead, the expanse of a starry night, or a range of towering,snow-capped mountains.Burke points out these awe-some sights which inthemselves provoke us to ask of their origins.

This book can berepetitious as Burke attempts to make, especially on taste, his pointabsolutely clear (I've got one of the later editions -1772.).

Additionally, some of the lines in the book are near-timeless andare good to have around to reference from. ... Read more

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No conservative library is complete without the thought of Edmund Burke, the founder of modern conservatism. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (2)

The Best of Burke:How He Influenced the Founding Fathers
Anyone who claims to enjoy reading about the history of the Founding Fathers, MUST first start with Edmund Burke.In "The Best of Burke," Conservatism was born.I was amazed on the topics that Mr. Burke commented about that were addressed by our Founding Fathers.Burke had them beat by decades.His writings on limited government and the sins of true democracy definitely influenced the writers of the Declaration and Constitution.Mr. Stanlis has done his country a service above payment.This book is certainly a must read for anyone calling themselves conservative.Burke's lessons stand the test of time.The prose is certainly his own.It flows beautifully.This book you must own!

The Best of Burke is the best Burke I've read
For the student of politics and politcal philosophy this compilation is a wonderful 'must-read'.I was captured at times by the power of Burke's writing.Occasionally I was so taken with the majesty of his language and the power of his logic that I found myself reading aloud, savoring each word.For example, try rolling these phrases off your tongue: "Liberty...is a general principle, and the clear right of all subjects within the realm, or of none.Partial freedom seems to me a most invidious mode of slavery.But unfortunately, it is the kind of slavery most easily admitted....The true danger is when liberty is nibbled away, for expedients, and by parts."Burke's erudition and style are refreshing in a modern political landscape of mediocrity and mindless soundbites. Editor Peter Stanlis divides the book into eight roughly chronological sections from Burke's seminal writings in the mid-1700's through his celebrated expressions as a member of Parliament debating the American Revolution, Ireland and Catholic Emancipation, Economic Reforms, British misrule in India and the subsequent impeachment of Governor-General Hastings.The Book concludes with selections from Burke's exceptional observations on the French Revolution, thoughts which galvanized British opposition to the revolutionary regimes and gave the intellectual undergirding of the Napoleonic Wars.Stanlis also provides the reader with helpful prequels setting the stage for each of the selected writings or speeches, a chronological table of Burke's life, a handy selected bibliography and a concise indroduction to the whole work which is an excellent summary of what follows.This hardback edition is well bound on quality paper.It will survive the many re-readings and quick searches it deserves. The one flaw in this edition is the lack of a helpful appendix or index.Even though my copy is well underscored and highlighted with marginal notes to flag key thoughts or expressions, appendices would save time thumbing through nearly 700 pages to find a particular quote.The book is not a quick read, yet it is surprisingly relevant to today's headlines.Burke's brilliant insights into human nature and the practical workings of governments far outshine most modern pundits.This book is now a standard reference work in my personal library, sitting on a close-at-hand shelf for ready access. ... Read more

Product Description
This is the first collection of the writings of Edmund Burke that precede Reflections on the Revolution in France. A thinker whose range transcends formal boundaries, Burke has been highly prized by both conservatives and liberal socialists, and this new edition charts the development of his thought and its importance as a response to the events of his day. Burke's mind spanned theology, aesthetics, moral philosophy and history, as well as the political affairs of Ireland, England, America, India and France, and he united these concerns in his view of inequality. This edition provides the student with all the necessary information for an understanding of the complexities of Burke's thought. Each text is prefaced by a summary, and extensive notes and an introduction place these works in the context of Burke's thought as a whole. ... Read more

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This is a reproduction of a book published before 1923.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process.We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide.We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

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Burke's work on aesthetics ... Read more

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This is an EXACT reproduction of a book published before 1923. This IS NOT an OCR'd book with strange characters, introduced typographical errors, and jumbled words.This book may have occasional imperfections such as missing or blurred pages, poor pictures, errant marks, etc. that were either part of the original artifact, or were introduced by the scanning process. We believe this work is culturally important, and despite the imperfections, have elected to bring it back into print as part of our continuing commitment to the preservation of printed works worldwide. We appreciate your understanding of the imperfections in the preservation process, and hope you enjoy this valuable book. ... Read more

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Edition first published in 1887.Active (linked) table of contents added 4/28/2009.If you bought a copy before that date, you should be able to download the new version at no extra cost.

According to Wikipedia: "Edmund Burke (1729-1797) was an Irish statesman, author, orator, political theorist, and philosopher, who served for many years in the British House of Commons as a member of the Whig party. He is mainly remembered for his support of the American colonies in the dispute with King George III and Great Britain that led to the American Revolution and for his strong opposition to the French Revolution... Burke also published philosophical works on aesthetics and founded the Annual Register, a political review. He is often regarded by conservatives as the Father of Anglo-American conservatism." ... Read more

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A classic of modern aesthetics that remains both influential and engaging, by the politician many consider the father of modern conservatism.

From the awesome thrill of the sublime to the delightful perfection of the beautiful, Edmund Burke gives an involving account of our sensory, imaginative, and judgmental process and its relation to artistic pleasure--it is a text that influenced the writers of the Romantic period. This edition also features several of Burke's early political works, which illustrate that, despite his later opposition to the Revolution in France, he took a liberal and humane view of society and government. A Philosophical Enquiry into the Sublime and Beautiful includes Burke's political parody, "A Vindication of Natural Society," and his essays on the American colony--"Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents," "Speech on American Taxation," "Speech on Conciliation with the Colonies," and "Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol on the Affairs of America." This authoritative edition has securely established texts, and in his illuminating Introduction, David Womersley clearly reveals the cross-pollination of Burke's aesthetic and political thinking: the power exercised by art and the art of exercising power. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

A Real Statesman
This is a good book by the articulate (very quotable) and profound philosopher-legislator Edmund Burke, who served in the English Parliament around the time of the American Revolution.Burke (1729-97) also authored the famous and controversial (at least at the time) work, "Reflections on the Revolution in France" (1790).

Of course, the main work in the Penguin Classics edition featured here is "A Philosophical Enquiry into the Sublime and Beautiful".It was notably influential on many of Burke's contemporaries, as well as on later literary artists such as William Wordsworth and Matthew Arnold.

However, some of the minor works appended to this edition, such as the 1777 "Letter to the Sheriffs of Bristol on the Affairs of America" (which is like a long, eloquent letter home to constituents) should not be overlooked.Indeed, while perusing this latter piece (and others included here, such as "Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents"), I couldn't help thinking how beneficial it would be to have a few sensible Edmund Burke-types serving in Congress or the White House right now as America deals with its global military adventures.America's Revolutionary War might even have been avoided if stubborn, indignent, autocratic, and belligerent King George III would have listened more closely to and followed Burke's reasoned advice.

It's a bit hilarious and ironic to think that, today, Burke is typically thought of as a political "conservative".Read this stuff, and you will likely agree that, in many respects, he was much more a thoughtful, humane liberal. ... Read more