Commentary

[in chronological order]

Respectable Partisans of Modern Liberty

- Mark Blitz, "Respectable Partisans of Modern Liberty," Library of Law and Liberty, October 1, 2015.
Excerpt: Fifty years have passed since Harvey Mansfield’s path-breaking Statesmanship and Party Government first appeared. It is a book so good that Leo Strauss is said to have wished he had written it. The original edition is now available as an… More

The Brooklyn Burkeans

- Jonathan Bronitsky, "The Brooklyn Burkeans," National Affairs (Winter 2014), pp 121-136.
Excerpt: “[I]f I were to say what neo-conservatism is as an intellectual impulse,” [Irving] Kristol stated in 1983, “I’d say it’s an effort to link these two conservative traditions represented on the one hand by Edmund Burke, on… More

The Great Debate by Yuval Levin

- Yuval Levin. The Great Debate: Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine, and the Birth of Right and Left. (New York: Basic Books, 2013)
Excerpt: This book seeks to examine Burke and Paine’s disagreement and to learn from it about both their era’s politics and ours. Using not only their dispute about the French Revolution but also the two men’s larger bodies of writing and… More

Edmund Burke in America: The Contested Career of the Father of Modern Conservatism

- Drew Maciag. Edmund Burke in America: The Contested Career of the Father of Modern Conservatism (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 2013).
From the publisher: The statesman and political philosopher Edmund Burke (1729–1797) is a touchstone for modern conservatism in the United States, and his name and his writings have been invoked by figures ranging from the arch Federalist George Cabot to… More

Burke Between Liberty and Tradition by Peter Berkowitz

- Peter Berkowitz, "Burke Between Liberty and Tradition," Policy Review, December 2012.
Feuding among American conservatives for the title True Conservative is nothing new. Ever since conservatism in America crystallized as a recognizable school in the 1950s, more than a few limited-government conservatives, or libertarians as they have come to… More

Edmund Burke: The First Conservative

- Jesse Norman, Edmund Burke: The First Conservative, (London: 2012).
Written by British Member of Parliament Jesse Norman, this lively work of biography and intellectual history traces Burke’s intellectual development, and how he came to be regarded as the first conservative—a distinctly modern political position.… More

Patriotism and Public Spirit: Edmund Burke and the Role of the Critic in Mid-Eighteenth-Century Britain

- Ian Crowe. Patriotism and Public Spirit: Edmund Burke and the Role of the Critic in Mid-Eighteenth-Century Britain (Stanford University Press, 2012).
Excerpt: l h e picture ofBurke that emerges from this book is intended to capture those dominant personal and intellectual influences that have been marginalized by current historiographical and methodological orthodoxies. It will stress, in particular, the… More

Strauss, Voegelin, and Burke: A Tale of Three Conservatives

- Robert P. Kraynak, "Strauss, Voegelin, and Burke: A Tale of Three Conservatives," Modern Age, Fall 2011, Vol. 53 Issue 4.
Abstract: The article explores the political beliefs of twentieth-century philosophers Leo Strauss, Eric Vogelin, and eighteenth-century British politician Edmund Burke. It considers the books “New Science of Politics” by Vogelin and… More

Edmund Burke and the Art of Rhetoric

- Paddy Bullard. Edmund Burke and the Art of Rhetoric (Cambridge University Press, 2011).
Excerpt: My business in the following pages is to explain how the combination of these two terms, ‘rhetoric’ and ‘character’, can help us describe the function and the beauty of Burke’s writings. Burke is acknowledged to have been the most… More

Edmund Burke for Our Time: Moral Imagination, Meaning, and Politics

- William F. Byrne. Edmund Burke for Our Time: Moral Imagination, Meaning, and Politics (Dekalb: Northern Illinois University Press, 2011)
Excerpt: Although the term “moral imagination” originated with Edmund Burke, much Burke scholarship fails to mention it. Two notable early and mid-twentieth-century thinkers, Irving Babbitt and Russell Kirk, do pick up on Burke’s concept and… More

The Burke-Wollstonecraft Debate: Savagery, Civilization, and Democracy

- Daniel O'Neill. The Burke-Wollstonecraft Debate: Savagery, Civilization, and Democracy (University Park: Penn State Press, 2007).
From the publisher: Many modern conservatives and feminists trace the roots of their ideologies, respectively, to Edmund Burke (1729–1797) and Mary Wollstonecraft (1759–1797), and a proper understanding of these two thinkers is therefore important as a… More

Family Feuds: Wollstonecraft, Burke, and Rousseau on the Transformation of the Family

- Eileen Hunt Botting. Family Feuds: Wollstonecraft, Burke, and Rousseau on the Transformation of the Family (Albany: SUNY Press, 2006).
From the publisher: Family Feuds is the first sustained comparative study of the place of the family in the political thought of Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Edmund Burke, and Mary Wollstonecraft. Eileen Hunt Botting argues that Wollstonecraft recognized both… More

Burke and International Human Rights

- Bruce Frohnen. "Burke and International Human Rights," in An Imaginative Whig: Reassessing the Life and Thought of Edmund Burke, ed. Ian Crowe (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2005).
Excerpt: … I now focus on the thought of Edmund Burke, a statesman who, faced with a deep conflict of cultures, sought to integrate historical, moral, and political principles so as to combine support for universal rights with a defense of the rights of… More

Burke’s Conservatism

- Harvey C. Mansfield. "Burke's Conservatism," in An Imaginative Whig: Reassessing the Life and Thought of Edmund Burke, ed. Ian Crowe (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2005).
Excerpt: In this essay, I will approach the question of Burke’s conservatism by considering the thought of two scholars whom it has been my pleasure to know and learn from: Peter J . Stanlis and Leo Strauss. … Stanlis presents Burke as “our… More

The Monasteries of France by Derek Beales

- Derek Beales, "Edmund Burke and the Monasteries of France," The Historical Journal, 48, 2 (2005), pp. 415–436.
Abstract: Burke’s Reflections contains a section of about ten pages on the monasteries of France, deploring not only the confiscation of their property but also the destruction of the institutions themselves, which are defended for their contribution to… More

Reactionary Prophet

- Christopher Hitchens, "Reactionary Prophet," The Atlantic Monthly (April 2004).
Excerpt: It is a frequent vice of radical polemic to assert, and even to believe, that once you have found the lowest motive for an antagonist, you have identified the correct one. And such reductionism makes a sort of rough partnership with the simplistic… More

The Roads to Modernity: The British, French, and American Enlightenments

- Gertrude Himmelfarb. The Roads to Modernity: The British, French, and American Enlightenments (New York: Knopf, 2004).
Excerpt: Burke’s views on economics suggest that there may be something like an “Edmund Burke Problem”- a “two Burkes” phenomenon comparable to the “Adam Smith Problem.” Just as the altruistic principles of the Theory… More

Edmund Burke: The Political Actor Thinking

- Frank M. Turner. "Edmund Burke: The Political Actor Thinking," introduction to Reflections on the Revolution in France (Yale University Press, 2003).
Excerpt: The value of Burke’s analysis … does not really lie in what many from the 1790s onward have regarded as its prophetic insights into the eventual judicial murder of the French royal family, further terror against French citizens from all… More

Edmund Burke and Ireland: Aesthetics, Politics and the Colonial Sublime

- Luke Gibbons, Edmund Burke and Ireland: Aesthetics, Politics and the Colonial Sublime (Cambridge University Press, 2003).
From the publisher: This study of Burke’s engagement with Irish politics and culture argues that Burke’s influential early writings on aesthetic are intimately connected to his political concerns. The concept of the sublime, at the heart of his… More

Edmund Burke: Modernity, Politics and Aesthetics

- Stephen K. White. Edmund Burke: Modernity, Politics and Aesthetics, (Lanham, Md.: Rowman and Littlefield, 2002).
From the publisher: Edmund Burke: Modernity, Politics, and Aesthetics examines the philosophy of Burke in view of its contribution to our understanding of modernity. Burke’s relevance, until recently, has lain in how his critique of the French… More

Liberty, Authority, and Trust in Burke’s Idea of Empire

- Richard Bourke, "Liberty, Authority, and Trust in Burke's Idea of Empire," Journal of the History of Ideas 61.3 (2000), 453-471.
When Edmund Burke first embarked upon a parliamentary career, British political life was in the process of adapting to a series of critical reorientations in both the dynamics of party affiliation and the direction of imperial policy. During the period of the… More

Edmund Burke and Reason of State

- David Armitage, "Edmund Burke and Reason of State," Journal of the History of Ideas 61.4 (2000), pp. 617-634.
Excerpt: Edmund Burke has been one of the few political thinkers to be treated seriously by international theorists. According to Martin Wight, one of the founders of the socalled “English School” of international theory, Burke was “[t]he… More

Liberalism and Empire: A Study in Nineteenth-Century British Liberal Thought

- Uday S. Mehta. Liberalism and Empire: A Study in Nineteenth-Century British Liberal Thought (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1999).
From the publisher: We take liberalism to be a set of ideas committed to political rights and self-determination, yet it also served to justify an empire built on political domination. Uday Mehta argues that imperialism, far from contradicting liberal tenets,… More

The Prudent Irishman: Edmund Burke’s Realism

- John Bolton, "The Prudent Irishman: Edmund Burke's Realism," The National Interest, Winter 1997-98.
Excerpt: Edmund Burke’s insights into civil society seem strikingly apposite today to American foreign policy. Among those are his reliance on the accretion of experience and reasoning from empirical reality, his abhorrence of elevating abstract… More

Edmund Burke and India: Political Morality and Empire

- Frederick G. Whelan. Edmund Burke and India: Political Morality and Empire (University of Pittsburgh Press, 1997).
From the publisher: Edmund Burke and India is the first thorough treatment of Burke’s views on India, even though the affairs of the British Indian empire occupied more of Burke’s attention – and occupy more space among his writings and… More

Wollstonecraft as a Critic of Burke

- David Bromwich, "Wollstonecraft as a Critic of Burke," Political Theory, Vol. 23, No. 4 (Nov., 1995), pp. 617-634.
Excerpt: Mary Wollstonecraft’s Vindication of the Rights of Men was the first published reply to Edmund Burke’s Reflections on the Revolution in France. Later replies from the radical side challenged and in a measure qualified Burke’s report… More

The Useful Cobbler: Edmund Burke and the Politics of Progress

- James Conniff. The Useful Cobbler: Edmund Burke and the Politics of Progress (Albany: SUNY Press, 1994).
Excerpt: For purpose of introduction, Burke’s contribution to the theory of representative government can be summarized in seven propositions. The first four provide a means of conceptualizing change. First, Burke argued that all abstract or… More

The Great Edmund Burke

- Harvey C. Mansfield, "The Great Edmund Burke," review of The Great Melody, by Conor Cruise O'Brien, New Criterion, November 1992.
Excerpt: The publication of The Great Melody is an event not just in the small circle of Edmund Burke scholarship but also in the larger community of historians. Still more, and above all, it is a gift to anyone who wants to understand politics. Conor Cruise… More

The Great Melody: A Thematic Biography of Edmund Burke

- Conor Cruise O'Brien. The Great Melody: A Thematic Biography of Edmund Burke (University of Chicago Press, 1992).
Excerpt: Can this book properly be described as a biography? It is certainly nor a conventional biography, but it is a complete biography, extending from the circumstances – key Burkean word – of the subject’s birth in Ireland to those of… More

Strauss’s Three Burkes: The Problem of Edmund Burke in Natural Right and History

- Steven J. Lenzer, "Strauss's Three Burkes: The Problem of Edmund Burke in Natural Right and History," Political Theory, Vol. 19, No. 3 (Aug., 1991), pp. 364-390.
Excerpt: Although Leo Strauss’s critique of Edmund Burke’s political theory in Natural Right and History is not the most famous ever written (it suffices to mention Paine’s Rights of Man), it is doubtless the most challenging. In part, this… More

Puzzling through Burke

- Don Herzog, "Puzzling through Burke," Political Theory, Vol. 19, No. 3 (Aug., 1991), pp. 336-363
Excerpt: There are, I suggest, three major lines of argument in Burke. One is a series of dead ends impossible to spell out coherently; another is sometimes incomplete, sometimes pernicious; the last and best offers a striking political sociology but is… More

A Vindication of Edmund Burke

- Conor Cruise O'Brien, "A Vindication of Edmund Burke," National Review (December 17, 1990).
Excerpt: What we have been witnessing in 1989-90, in the Soviet Union and in Eastern Europe, is the bankruptcy of the greatest experiment in social and political innovation ever made. What stronger vindication could there be of the principles laid down, and… More

Aesthetics and Politics in Edmund Burke

- Terry Eagleton, "Aesthetics and Politics in Edmund Burke," History Workshop, No. 28 (Autumn, 1989), pp. 53-62.
Excerpt: What the aesthetic in Burke sets its face most firmly against is the notion of natural rights. It is precisely that dryly theoretic discourse, a revolutionary one in his day, that the appeal to the intimate habits of the body is out to worst. The… More

Man’s Second Disobedience: a Vindication of Burke

- Roger Scruton, "Man’s Second Disobedience: a Vindication of Burke" in Ceri Crossley and Ian Small (eds.), The French Revolution and British Culture (Oxford University Press, 1989).
Excerpt: Tocqueville remarked that there is the greatest difference between a ‘revolution’ (such as that of 1688, or that which founded the United States of America) through which law and adjudication continue undisturbed and which has the… More

Edmund Burke and the American Constitution by Morton Frisch

- Morton J. Frisch, "Edmund Burke and the American Constitution," Interpretation, Fall 1989.
Frisch examines Burke’s opinion on the American Constitution and why Burke supported the American Revolution even as he would later oppose the French Revolution.

Edmund Burke by Harvey Mansfield

- Harvey C. Mansfield, "Edmund Burke," History of Political Philosophy, Leo Strauss and Joseph Cropsey, eds., 3rd ed., Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987.
Excerpt: For almost all his adult life, Burke was a politician; for almost thirty years he was a member of the House of Commons, busy with the affairs of his party in the daily management of men and issues. His speeches, pamphlets, and books sound the grand… More

Conservatism: Dream and Reality

- Robert Nisbet. Conservatism: Dream and Reality (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1986).
From Amazon: Nisbet holds that although political philosophers are often conceived in terms of their views of the individual and the state, a more useful approach adds the factor of social groups or communities mediating between the individual and the state.… More

The Value-Centered Historicism of Edmund Burke

- Joseph Baldacchino, "The Value-Centered Historicism of Edmund Burke," Modern Age 27, no. 2 (1983).
Excerpt: As he opposed the notion of a “geographical” morality, so, too, did Burke denounce the idea that man’s moral duty changes with the passage of time. “We know that we have made no discoveries,” he writes, “and we… More

Natural Law and Historicity: Burke and Niebuhr

- Vigen Guroian, "Natural Law and Historicity: Burke and Niebuhr," Modern Age 25, no. 2 (June 1981).
Excerpt: Edmund Burke and Reinhold Niebuhr have not often been made the subjects of a comparative inquiry. Yet, for the inquisitive, there is to be found a broad and deep confluence of their ideas on politics and the moral life. And one of the most… More

Burke

- C.B. Macpherson, Burke (Oxford University Press, 1980).
Excerpt: There is no doubt that in everything he wrote and did, he venerated the traditional order. But his traditional order was already a capitalist order. He saw that it was so, and wished it to be more freely so. He had no romantic yearning for a bygone… More

Burke, Edmund

- Harvey C. Mansfield, "Burke, Edmund," Encyclopedia Americana, New York: Americana Corporation, 1969.

Burke on Christianity

- Harvey C. Mansfield, "Burke on Christianity," Studies in Burke and His Time, Vol. 9 (1968), pp. 864-865.

Burke and Machiavelli on Principles in Politics

- Harvey C. Mansfield, "Burke and Machiavelli on Principles in Politics," Edmund Burke: The Enlightenment and the Modern World, P.H. Stanlis, ed., University of Detroit Press, 1967, pp. 49-79.

The Concept of Representation

- Hanna Pitkin. The Concept of Representation (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1967).  
Excerpt: What happens to the idea of representation when a writer concentrates on the representing of unattached abstractions is nowhere shown more clearly than in the thought of Edmund Burke. For Burke, political representation is the representation of… More

Review of The Correspondence of Edmund Burke

- Harvey C. Mansfield, Review of The Correspondence of Edmund Burke Volume V: July 1782-June 1789, Holden Furber and P. J. Marshall, eds., Political Science Quarterly, December 1966.

Edmund Burke’s View of History

- John C. Weston, Jr., "Edmund Burke's View of History," The Review of Politics, Vol. 23, No. 2 (Apr., 1961), pp. 203-229.
Excerpt: Most analyses of views of history resolve themselves into considerations of progress. We ask, does a particular man believe in progress? And since most modem thinkers do believe in some form of progress, the answer acquires significance for its… More

Edmund Burke’s Conception of the Role of Reason in Politics

- Francis J. Canavan, "Edmund Burke's Conception of the Role of Reason in Politics," The Journal of Politics, Vol. 21, No. 1 (Feb., 1959), pp. 60-79.
Excerpt: British and American scholars have generally taken Edmund Burke for a utilitarian and an empiricist with a keen sense of historical development, qualified by certain religious prepossessions which inclined him to conservatism. … All of these… More

Conservatism as an Ideology

- Samuel P. Huntington, "Conservatism as an Ideology" American Political Science Review, Vol. 51, No. 2 (Jun., 1957), pp. 454-473.
Excerpt: Most writers agree, and it is assumed here, that Burke is properly called a conservative. The question, consequently, is: can Burke best be understood as the spokesman for the feudal aristocratic order, the expounder of values and ideals universally… More

Natural Right and History

- Leo Strauss. "Burke" in Natural Right and History. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1953). pp.
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Edmund Burke and the Argument from Circumstance

- Richard Weaver, "Edmund Burke and the Argument from Circumstance" in The Ethics of Rhetoric (Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1953).
Excerpt: Burke is widely respected as a conservative who was intelligent enough to provide solid philosophical foundations for his conservatism. It is perfectly true that many of his observations upon society have a conservative basis; but if one studies the… More

The Conservative Mind: From Burke to Eliot

- Russell Kirk. The Conservative Mind: From Burke to Eliot (Chicago: Henry Regnery, 1960). First edition originally published 1953.
Excerpt: Conscious conservatism, in the modern sense, did not manifest itself until 1790, with the publication of Reflections on the Revolution in France. In that year the prophetic powers of Burke fixed in the public consciousness, for the first time, the… More

Conservatism Revisited

- Peter Viereck. Conservatism Revisited (New York: The Free Press, 1962 [1949]).
Excerpt from 1962 edition: …it is imprecise to call conservative those counter-revolutionary ideologues of the right who defy the conservative principles of continuity with the past by trying to wrench American life out of its liberal and New Deal past.… More