The Evils of Revolution

'A revolution will be the very last resource of the thinking and the good'  Edmund Burke

Edmund Burke (1729 - 97) was born in Dublin and educated at Trinity College, Dublin. In 1750 he entered the Middle Temple in London but soon left law for literature. His Philosophical Enquiry into the Sublime and the Beautiful influenced many writers of the Romantic period. An MP in the Whig Party, he championed the cause of Catholic emancipation and was involved in the governing of India.

Written at a time when most of Europe supported the French Revolution, Edmund Burke&rsquo;s prescient and, at the time, controversial denunciation of its mob rule predicted the Terror, began the modern conservative tradition and still serves as a warning to those who seek to reshape societies through violence. 
 
Throughout history, some books have changed the world. They have transformed the way we see ourselves &ndash; and each other. They have inspired debate, dissent, war and revolution. They have enlightened, outraged, provoked and comforted. They have enriched lives &ndash; and destroyed them. Now Penguin brings you the works of the great thinkers, pioneers, radicals and visionaries whose ideas shook civilization and helped make us who we are.

A Philosophical Enquiry into the Sublime and Beautiful

Burke's hugely influential work - particularly in art - on the sublime and the beautiful

Edmund Burke (1729-97) was elected as an MP in 1781. He championed the unpopular cause of Catholic emancipation and a great part of his career became dedicated to the problem of India. The French Revolution prompted one of his best-known works Reflections on the Revolution in France. 
David Womersley is editor of Augustan Critical Writing, which was recently published in Penguin Classics.

Edmund Burke was one of the foremost philosophers of the eighteenth century and wrote widely on aesthetics, politics and society. In this landmark work, he propounds his theory that the sublime and the beautiful should be regarded as distinct and wholly separate states - the first, an experience inspired by fear and awe, the second an expression of pleasure and serenity. Eloquent and profound, A Philosophical Enquiry is an involving account of our sensory, imaginative and judgmental processes and their relation to artistic appreciation. Burke's work was hugely influential on his contemporaries and also admired by later writers such as Matthew Arnold and William Wordsworth. This volume also contains several of his early political works on subjects including natural society, government and the American colonies, which illustrate his liberal, humane views.

Reflections on the Revolution in France

Burke's seminal work on the French Revolution, and a fine example of conservative political thought

Edmund Burke (1729 - 97) was born in Dublin and educated at Trinity College, Dublin. In 1750 he entered the MIddle Temple in London but soon left law for literature. His Philosophical Enquiry into the Sublime and the Beautiful influenced many writers of the Romantic period. An MP in the Whig Party, he championed the cause of Catholic emancipation and was involved in the governing India. 
Conor Cruise O'Brien is Emeritus Professor of the University of Dublin. In 1955 he was Counsellor in Paris and head of the United Nations section on Ireland from 1956 - 1960. He has been a professor at NYU, St Catherine's College, Oxford and at Dartmouth College in the USA. He has written on subjects including Ireland, Israel and the French Revolution.

Burke's seminal work was written during the early months of the French Revolution, and it predicted with uncanny accuracy many of its worst excesses, including the Reign of Terror. A scathing attack on the revolution's attitudes to existing institutions, property and religion, it makes a cogent case for upholding inherited rights and established customs, argues for piecemeal reform rather than revolutionary change - and deplores the influence Burke feared the revolution might have in Britain. Reflections on the Revolution in France is now widely regarded as a classic statement of conservative political thought, and is one of the eighteenth century's great works of political rhetoric.

Edmund Burke

Jesse Norman

Amid the 18th century’s golden generation that included his companions Adam Smith, Samuel Johnson and Edward Gibbon, Burke’s controversial mixture of conservative and subversive theories made him first a marginal figure, and finally a revered theorist – a hero of the Romantics. He warned of the effects of British rule in Ireland, the loss of the American colonies, and most famously, he foresaw the disastrous consequences of revolution in France. This he predicted, would trigger extremism, terror and the atomisation of society – a profound analysis that continues to resonate today. 
 
In this absorbing new biography Conservative MP Jesse Norman gives us Burke anew, vividly depicting his dazzling intellect, imagination and empathy against the rich tapestry of 18th century Europe. Burke’s wisdom, Norman shows, applies well beyond the times of empire to the conventional democratic politics practised in Britain and America today. 
 
We cannot understand the defects of the modern world, or modern politics, without him.

Reflections on The Revolution in France And Other Writings

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