Major Works

• Reflections on the Revolution in France

  - Recommended edition: Reflections on the Revolution in France, ed. J.G.A. Pocock (Indianapolis, Hackett, 1987). Originally published 1790.
  Excerpt: It is now sixteen or seventeen years since I saw the queen of France, then the dauphiness, at Versailles; and surely never lighted on this orb, which she hardly seemed to touch, a more delightful vision. I saw her just above the horizon, decorating… More

Commentary

• 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

• 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 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

• 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 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

• 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

Multimedia

• Edmund Burke and the Origins of Modern Conservatism

  - David A. Norcross, "Edmund Burke and the Origins of Modern Conservatism," Lecture at The Citadel, 25 January 2012.
  From CSPAN: [F]ormer General Counsel to the Republican National Committee David Norcross looks at Edmund Burke and the Origins of Modern Conservatism. Mr. Norcross is a guest lecturer at The Citadel Military College in Charleston, South Carolina, in a… More

• After Words: Yuval Levin

  - "After Words: Yuval Levin," CSPAN Book TV, 4 January 2014.
  The author of The Great Debate: Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine, and the Birth of Right and Left, Mr. Levin discusses the origin of the political Left-Right divide, arguing that today’s partisanship began with the debates over the French Revolution. He… More