Edmund Burke: The Enlightenment and Revolution

by Peter Stanlis (Editor)

Overview

Two centuries after Edmund Burke published his Reflections on the Revolution in France, his name and reputation stand alongside Locke, Montesquieu, and Hume - the other still-cited grand political thinkers of the eighteenth century. For those great nations that have fallen into what Burke called "the antagonist world of madness, discord, vice, confusion and unavailing sorrow," the work of Burke supplies that sense of order, justice and freedom the 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 the political thought of the 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 the English revolution of 1688.

Stanlis' reasons' for linking Burke to the English Revolution rather than the later, and admittedly more decisive American and French Revolutions of his own time, is that for Burke, that earlier event was the normative pivot for judging how to make important changes in civil society. Indeed, even in his writings on the contemporary revolutions of his time,. Stanlis reminds us that Burke interpreted revolutionary events in France and Americas through the prism of the bloodless Revolution of 1688.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780887383595
Publisher:	Transaction Publishers
Publication date:	01/30/1991
Series:	The Library of Conservative Thought
Pages:	284
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Russell Kirk (1918–1994) was the author of twenty-nine books in several fields. He was the founding editor of Transaction’s Library of Conservative Thought series.

Peter J. Stanlis (1919-2011) was distinguished professor of humanities emeritus at Rockford College, Rockford, Illinois. His writings have appeared in Modern Age, The Political Science Reviewer, and The Intercollegiate Review and his books include Edmund Burke: The Enlightenment and the Modern World; Robert Frost: The Individual; and Conversations with Robert Frost.

Table of Contents

One: Burke’s Political Philosophy; 1: Burke and the Moral Natural Law; 2: Burke and the Law of Nations; 3: Burke the Perennial Political Philosopher; Two: Burke’s Critique of the Enlightenment; 4: Burke and the Rationalism of the Enlightenment; 5: Burke and the Sensibility of Rousseau; Three: Burke and Revolution; 6: Burke’s General View of Revolution; 7: Burke and the Revolution of 1688

Editorial Reviews

Stanlis (humanities, Rockford College) has mounted a many sided defense of Edmund Burke as the modern exponent of the moral Natural Law of classical, scholastic, and stoic origin, against an enemy host of positivists, utilitarians, religious zealots, revolutionary natural-rights theorists, and socialists.” —E. J. Eisenach, Choice “I began reading Stanlis’ book in the belief that I already knew Burke well. Yet I learned so much from a reading of Stanlis that I came to realize that I knew him less fully than I had imagined. . . . Stanlis demonstrates beyond all shadow of doubt that Burke was a whole-hearted exponent of the natural law, that he made frequent—almost constant—reference to it, that it constitutes the very foundation of Burke’s political thought, and that anyone who reads Burke otherwise has not read Burke with due care at all. After Stanlis there should no longer be any debate—about Burke’s view, his consistency, his admance, or its centrality to his thought.” —Rod Preece, The University Bookman “Stanlis’ work reflects its author’s standing as the premier American Burke scholar.” —Charles Coulombe, Reflections “Professor Peter Stanlis has done perhaps more than any other scholar of this century to explicate the thought of Edmund Burke as both philosopher and statesman.” —Gregory S. Ahern, Humanitas

From the Publisher