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

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Edmund Burke (1729-1797) was an Anglo-Irish statesman, author, orator, political theorist, and philosopher who, after relocating to Great Britain, 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 Britain that led to the American Revolution and for his strong opposition to the French Revolution. Burke worked on aesthetics and founded the Annual Register, a political review. He is widely regarded as the philosophical founder of Anglo-American conservatism. Burke’s first published work, A Vindication of Natural Society, appeared in 1756. In 1757, he published a treatise on aesthetics, A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful. His other works include: Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790) and An Appeal from the New to the Old Whigs (1791). ... Read more

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A Satire or Serious piece on political philosophy?
This is a very unusual book.Even before readers begin discussing the content of the book, they find themselves in vigorous debate over the intentions of its author.I am the third reviewer so far to post his thoughts on amazon.One believes that this book contains important political insights, the other derides him for attempting to make such a case.I decided to ignore these issues and read the book in order to understand what was being expressed.I found it very enjoyable.

Now, the title is a bit misleading.The author in no way truly "vindicates" natural society.The book consists more of a series of brilliant critiques of what the author calls "political" or "civil society" the purpose of which is to compare this arrangement to the state of nature, or "natural society."

The first 20 or so pages documents several wars which were carried out by political states for trivial purposes.In particular he discusses the military campaigns of Egypt, Greece, and Rome.The prose is very lucid and engaging. He uses phrases like "great Carnage", "Rage of Conquest" "...poured out Seas of Blood in their Formation and in their Destruction."These enlightening details culminate with the fascinating conclusion, "I charge the whole of these Effects on political Society. ... [T]hat Political Society is justly chargeable with much the greatest Part of this Destruction of the Species."

The next 20 or so pages discusses 3 political systems:despotisms (empires), aristocracy, and democracy.These three systems, the author concludes, differ but in name.All are clear historical examples of tyranny.

So this book is not so much a defense of the state of nature than it is a critique of government, or poltitical institutions generally.Only in a select few passages does the author mention the moral superiority of the "natural society."Overall, I found them largely unconvincing.For example, Burke argues that because there were no wants in the natural state, life was simpler, and thus happier.

Satire or not, I enjoyed this short little book.But you will not find a robust Rousseauian defense of the natural state in here.You will find, however, a clear and lucid argument against government.And it is because of this that I rated the book the way I did.

A very odd parody of political radicalism
I was a little startled by an earlier review of this work that suggested that Burke's parody of Bolingbroke could possibly be taken seriously as a work of political insight.And although there have been scholars who have suggested (without supporting evidence) that Burke meant the work to be taken seriously, it is difficult for anyone familiar with Burke's later writings to regard "Vindication" as anything other than a rather dismal parady. The later writings all display qualities sadly lacking in this work, especially the subtlety of thought and nuanced insights featured in "The Reflections on the French Revolution."Anyone who could take this work seriously merely displays a kind of political obtuseness that goes against the very sophistacated, practice-rooted political thinkingexemplified by Burke.It is rather laughable that a radical thinker like Godwin should have mined Burke's parody for insights.It demonstrates all to well the essential shallowness of radical political thought.

Invaluable Work in the Anarchist Tradition
The redoubtable Edmund Burke is widely known as the man who layed down the philosophical foundations of modern conservatism.Thus, it may come as a great surprise to discover that he penned what may very well be one of the earliest clear expositions of philosophical anarchism in the Western tradition.While scholars may always dispute over the issue of whether or not the "Vindication" was meant as a serious work or a satire, the book's status as a landmark is incontestable.

In this terse tract, Burke sets out to apply the same rationalistic standards to the realm of politics that 18th century Deists like Lord Bolingbroke applied to the doctrines of revealed religion.As Deists upheld the distinction between natural( i.e. rational) and artificial (irrational or faith-based) religion, Burke seeks to defend natural (anarchistic or voluntaristic) society against that which is dominated by the brute engine of government.

Although modern conservatives may also give their full support to the idea that the unrestrained employment of reason undermines the basis of both religion and government, it is infidel anarchists who will derrive the greatest value from his insights. For those wise enough to allow the light of reason to be their guide, the "Vindication" serves as a powerful indictment of government and the innumerable crimes that it has perpetrated on mankind wherever it has existed.

If indeed the work is a satire, it would seem that it has done far more damage to Burke's cause than he would ever have imagined.Not only did the tract serve as a great inspiration to William Godwin, the man who, in less than four decades from the time of this book's publication, authored one of the definitivie works of philosophical anarchism, but it will certainly serve the ends of anarchists for many years to come, as they continue to wage war against the religion of politics with many of the same weapons that Burke has so eloquently furnished for us. ... Read more

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

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Today the idea of natural law as the basic ingredient in moral, legal, andpolitical thought presents a challenge not faced for almost two hundred years.On the surface, there would appear to be little room in the contemporaryworld for a widespread belief in natural law. The basic philosophies of theopposition-the rationalism of the philosophes, the utilitarianism of Bentham,the materialism of Marx-appear to have made prior philosophies irrelevant. Yetthese newer philosophies themselves have been overtaken by disillusionmentborn of confl icts between "might" and "right." Many thoughtful people whowere loyal to secular belief have become dissatisfi ed with the lack of normative principles and have turned once more to natural law. This fi rst book-length study of Edmund Burke and his philosophy, originally published in 1958,explores this intellectual giant's relationship to, and belief in, the naturallaw. ... Read more

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Part of a three-volume set, this text presents selected work of Edmund Burke on English history and political thought. This first volume contains Burke's defence of the American colonists' complaints of British policy and includes "Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents"(1770), "Speech on American Taxation"(1774), and "Speech on Conciliation"(1775). Volume Two in the set consists of Burke's "Reflections on the Revolution in France". Volume Three presents his "Letters on a Regicide Peace"(1795-1796). The text includes notes and introductory essays by E. J. Payne. ... Read more

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The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 08 (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 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

Product Description
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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This is the second and concluding volume of a biography of Edmund Burke (1730-97), a key figure in eighteenth-century British and Irish politics and intellectual life. Covering the most interesting years of his life (1784-97), its leading themes are India and the French Revolution. Burke was largely responsible for the impeachment of Warren Hastings, former Governor-General of Bengal. The lengthy (145-day) trial of Hastings (which lasted from 1788 to 1795) is recognized as a landmark episode in the history of Britain's relationship with India. Lock provides the first day-by-day account of the entire trial, highlighting some of the many disputes about evidence as well as the great set speeches by Burke and others.

In 1790, Burke published Reflections on the Revolution in France , the earliest sustained attack on the principles of the Revolution. Continuously in print ever since, the Reflections remains the most widely read and quoted book about the Revolution. The Reflections was followed by a series of anti-revolutionary writings, as Burke maintained his crusade against the Revolution to the end of his life.

In addition to these leading themes, the biography examines many other topics in its coverage of Burke's busy and varied life: his parliamentary career; his family, friendships, and philanthropy; and his often difficult and obsessive personality. There are more than thirty illustrations, including many contemporary caricatures that convey how Burke was perceived by an often hostile and uncomprehending public. Controversial in his time, Burke is now regarded as one of the greatest of orators in the English language, as well as one of the most influential political philosophers in the Western tradition. ... Read more

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

Customer Reviews (1)

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

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

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

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

Recommended reading for anyone interested in political philosophy, enlightenment history, and the French Revolution.
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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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philosophicalby Edmund Burke
A philosophical enquiry into the origin of our ideas of the sublime and beautiful, 1759 ... Read more

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

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In this unique book, Peter J. Stanlis, the leading Burke scholar in America,has collected all the most important works and speeches of Edmund Burke(1729-1797), British statesman, political philosopher, and founder of modernconservative thought and, with due care to preserve the beauty of Burke'sprose, edited them down to their essentials. ... Read more

Product Description
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

Product Description
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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This is a book that contrary to common practice, shows the commonalities of ancient and modern theories of freedom, law, and rational actions. Studying the works of the ancients is necessary to understanding those that follow. Thomas Chaimowic challenges current trends in research on antiquity in his examination of Montesquieus and Burks path of inquiry. He focuses on ideas of balance and freedom. Montesquieu and Burke believe that freedom and balance are closely connected, for without balance within a state there can be no freedom.When Montesquieu speaks of republics, he means those of antiquity as they were understood in the eighteenth century. In this view, freedom can develop only within the framework of established tradition. Edmund Burkes greatest service to political thought may lie in making use of this idea when he fought against the abstractions of the French Revolutionaries. Antiquity as the Source of Modernity examines Montesquieus "Roman mind," meaning not an attitude influenced by the ancients, but one primarily influenced by Roman heritage. It speaks to the antithesis of monarchy and despotism in Montesquieus thought and the influence of Tacitus and Pliny the Younger on him. The separation of powers and its relation to the concept of the mixed constitution as well as Montesquieus smaller masterpiece Considerations on the Causes of the Grandeur and Decadence of the Romans are examined in detail. Finally, the discussion leads seamlessly to Burke, who, as a critical admirer of Montesquieu, partly incorporated his interpretation of the English constitution into his own thinking threatened by teachings of the French Revolution and its British adherents.The central idea of Antiquity as the Source of Modernity is timeless. It is that the ancient past can lead to a clearer understanding of what follows. ... Read more