Edmund Burke: A Genius Reconsidered

By Russell Kirk

Book Overview

In this, the liveliest and most accessible one-volume life of Edmund Burke, Russell Kirk ingeniously combines into a living whole the private and the public Burke. He gives us a fresh assessment of the great statesman, who enjoys even greater influence today than in his own time. Russell Kirk was a leading figure in the post-World War II revival of American interest in Edmund Burke. Today, no one who takes seriously the problems of society dares remain indifferent to "the first conservative of our time of troubles." In Russell Kirk's words: "Burke's ideas interest anyone nowadays, including men bitterly dissenting from his conclusions. If conservatives would know what they defend, Burke is their touchstone; and if radicals wish to test the temper of their opposition, they should turn to Burke." Kirk lucidly unfolds Burke's philosophy, showing how it revealed itself in concrete historical situations during the eighteenth century and how Burke, through his philosophy, "speaks to our age."

This volume makes vivid the four great struggles in the life of Burke: his efforts to reconcile England with the American colonies; his involvements in cutting down the domestic power of George III; his prosecution of Warren Hastings, the Governor General of India; and his resistance to Jacobinism, the French Revolution's "armed doctrine." In each of these great phases of his public life, Burke fought with passionate eloquence and relentless logic for justice and for the proper balance of order and freedom. With sure instinct born of his sympathy and understanding, Kirk gives us the incisive quotation, the illuminating highlight, the moving, all-too-human elements that bring Burke and his age to vivid life. Thanks to Russell Kirk's skillful evocations, Edmund Burke in these pages becomes our contemporary. "Because corruption and fanaticism assail our era as sorely as they did Burke's time, the resonance of Burke's voice still is heard amidst the howl of our winds of abstract doctrine."

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1935191764
• ISBN13: 9781935191766
• Release Date: December 2009
• Publisher: Intercollegiate Studies Institute
• Length: 300 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.2" x 8.1"

Customer Reviews

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.

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.