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."""

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9781935191766

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If you are not a Burke scholar...Edmund Burke: A Genius Reconsidered must be read first. -The World & I This is the liveliest and most accessible one-volume biography of Edmund Burke. -The Bookwatch Kirk's scholarship is wide-ranging ... and of course he brings to bear his close knowledge of the vast array of modern Burke scholarship. [His] ... book is both elegant and eloquent, and it helps to fill a real need. -Jeffrey Hart, National Review [T]he book serves as a good short introduction to Burke's life and throught. -Library Journal | No one knows more about Burke or writes of him with as much authority as did Russell Kirk. -M.D. Aeschliman, The Wanderer Edmund Burke is the very book for the non-specialist and the very book that no specialist will want to be without. It is at once a general introduction to the essence of Burke's thought and a major reassessment of Burke in the light of the vast body of scholarship now available on him. -G.B. Tennyson, University Bookman Only a man of Kirk's provenance and ambiance would have been appropriate for the job-to reassert, by way of Burke, 'the natural law tradition [against] the positivism, nominalism and scientific materialism of modern liberal thought,' as Carl Cone has put it. -C.P. Ives, Modern Age

If you are not a Burke scholar...Edmund Burke: A Genius Reconsidered must be read first. -The World & I This is the liveliest and most accessible one-volume biography of Edmund Burke. -The Bookwatch Kirk's scholarship is wide-ranging . . . and of course he brings to bear his close knowledge of the vast array of modern Burke scholarship. [His] . . . book is both elegant and eloquent, and it helps to fill a real need. -Jeffrey Hart, National Review [T]he book serves as a good short introduction to Burke's life and throught. -Library Journal | No one knows more about Burke or writes of him with as much authority as did Russell Kirk. -M.D. Aeschliman, The Wanderer Edmund Burke is the very book for the non-specialist and the very book that no specialist will want to be without. It is at once a general introduction to the essence of Burke's thought and a major reassessment of Burke in the light of the vast body of scholarship now available on him. -G.B. Tennyson, University Bookman Only a man of Kirk's provenance and ambiance would have been appropriate for the job-to reassert, by way of Burke, `the natural law tradition [against] the positivism, nominalism and scientific materialism of modern liberal thought,' as Carl Cone has put it. -C.P. Ives, Modern Age

If you are not a Burke scholar... Edmund Burke: A Genius Reconsidered must be read first. <br>-- The World & I <br><br> This is the liveliest and most accessible one-volume biography of Edmund Burke. <br>-- The Bookwatch <br><br> Kirk's scholarship is wide-ranging . . . and of course he brings to bear his close knowledge of the vast array of modern Burke scholarship. [His] . . . book is both elegant and eloquent, and it helps to fill a real need. <br>--Jeffrey Hart, National Review <br><br> [T]he book serves as a good short introduction to Burke's life and throught. <br>-- Library Journal <br>

Author Information

Dr. Kirk was one of this century's foremost men of letters. He was the founder of the conservative quarterlies Modern Age and The University Bookman. The Conservative Mind, Edmund Burke, The Roots of American Order, Enemies of the Permanent Things, and Eliot and His Age  are among his over thirty books.

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