Commentary

• 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

• 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

• 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