Edmund Burke: The Enlightenment and Revolution.

Abstract

Two centuries after Edmund Burke published his Reflections on Revolution in France, his name and reputation stand alongside Locke, Montesquieu, and Hume - other still-cited grand political thinkers of eighteenth century. For those great nations that have fallen into what Burke called the antagonist world of madness, discord, vice, confusion and unavailing sorrow, work of Burke supplies that sense of order, justice and freedom present age seems to require. This volume by Peter Stanlis has grown out of almost four decades of studying Burke. Today, Professor Stanlis is called by Russell Kirk the leading American authority on political thought of great conservative reformer. The book is divided into three categories: Burke on law and politics; Burke's criticism of Enlightenment rationalism and sensibility; and Burke's theory of revolution and critique of English revolution of 1688. Stanlis' reasons' for linking Burke to English Revolution rather than later, and admittedly more decisive American and French Revolutions of his own time, is that for Burke, that earlier event was normative pivot for judging how to make important changes in civil society. Indeed, even in his writings on contemporary revolutions of his time, . Stanlis reminds us that Burke interpreted revolutionary events in France and Americas through prism of bloodless Revolution of 1688.