Few thinkers have provoked such violently opposing reactions as Edmund Burke. A giant of eighteenth-century political and intellectual life, Burke has been praised as a prophet who spied the terror latent in revolutionary or democratic ideologies, and condemned as defender of social hierarchy and outmoded political institutions.Ross Carroll tempers these judgments by situating Burke’s arguments in relation to the political controversies of his day. Burke’s writings must be understo...

How the philosophers and polemicists of eighteenth-century Britain used ridicule in the service of religious toleration, abolition, and political justiceThe relaxing of censorship in Britain at the turn of the eighteenth century led to an explosion of satires, caricatures, and comic hoaxes. This new vogue for ridicule unleashed moral panic and prompted warnings that it would corrupt public debate. But ridicule also had vocal defenders who saw it as a means to expos...

An acclaimed portrait of Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine, and the origins of modern conservatism and liberalism.**"Clever and intellectually persuasive ... A thoughtful introduction to this famous paradigmatic opposition.” -**Washington PostIn The Great Debate, Yuval Levin explores the roots of the left/right political divide in America by examining the views of the men who best represented each side at its origin: Edmund Burke...

“A brilliant history of a weaponized mantra.” —The GuardianA leading intellectual historian shows how free speech, once viewed as both hazardous and unnatural, was reinvented as an unalloyed good, with enormous consequences for our society today.Every premodern society, from Sumeria to China to seventeenth–century Europe, knew that bad words could destroy lives, undermine social order, and create political unrest. Given the obvious...

Longlisted for the Orwell Prize and the Samuel Johnson prize for non-fiction; both conservative and subversive, Burke’s beliefs have never been more relevant, as MP Jesse Norman explains.Philosopher, statesman, and founder of modern conservatism, Edmund Burke is both the greatest and most under-rated political thinker of the past three-hundred years. Born in Ireland in 1729, and greatly affected by its bigotry and extremes, his career constituted a lifelong struggle against the abu...

British politician Daniel Hannan's Inventing Freedom is an ambitious account of the historical origin and spread of the principles that have made America great, and their role in creating a sphere of economic and political liberty that is as crucial as it is imperiled.According to Hannan, the ideas and institutions we consider essential to maintaining and preserving our freedoms—individual rights, private property, the rule of law, and the institutions of representative government—...

The often-violent conflicts of the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries were sparked by the pursuit of freedom of thought. In time, this drive led to bitter fighting, including the English Civil War. Then came revolutions in America and France that swept away monarchies for more representative forms of government and making possible the abolition of slavery, the enfranchisement of women, and the idea of universal human rights and freedoms. Each of these struggles was a memorable human drama, ...

Adam Smith is celebrated all over the world as the author of The Wealth of Nations and the founder of modern economics. A few of his ideas - that of the 'Invisible Hand' of the market and that 'It is not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker that we expect our dinner, but from their regard to their own interest' - have become icons of the modern world. Yet Smith saw himself primarily as a philosopher rather than an economist, and would never have predicted ...

"The best explanation that I have seen for our distinctive combination of faith, hope and naiveté concerning the governmental process." —Michael Kamman, Washington PostThis book makes the provocative case here that America has remained politically stable because the Founding Fathers invented the idea of the American people and used it to impose a government on the new nation. His landmark analysis shows how the notion of popular sovereignty—the unexpected ...

Very Short Introductions: Brilliant, Sharp, Inspiring The British constitution is regarded as unique among the constitutions of the world. What are the main characteristics of Britain's peculiar constitutional arrangements? How has the British constitution altered in response to the changing nature of its state - from England, to Britain, to the United Kingdom? What impact has the UK's developing relations with the European Union caused? These are some of the questions th...

Republicanism is a centuries-old political tradition, yet its precise meaning has long been contested. The term has been used to refer to government in the public interest, to regimes administered by a collective body or an elected president, and even just to systems embodying the values of liberty and civic virtue. But what do we really mean when we talk about republicanism?In this new book, leading scholar Rachel Hammersley expertly and accessibly introduces this complex...

"An astonishing range of reading in contemporary tracts and modern authorities is manifest, and many aspects of British and colonial affairs are illuminated. As a political analysis this very important contribution will be hard to refute...."—Frederick B. Tolles, Political Science Quarterly"He produces historical analysis which is as revealing to the political scientist or sociologist as to the historian, of the significance of social and cultural forces on political changes...