The Portable Edmund Burke

Book excerpt: The intellectual wellspring of modern political conservatism, Edmund Burke is also considered a significant figure in aesthetic theory and cultural studies. As a member of the House of Commons during the late eighteenth century, Burke shook Parliament with his powerful defense of the American Revolution and the rights of persecuted Catholics in England and Ireland; his indictment of the English rape of the Indian subcontinent; and, most famously, his denouncement of English Jacobin sympathizers during the French Revolution. The Portable Edmund Burke is the fullest one- volume survey of Burke's thought, with sections devoted to his writings on history and culture, politics and society, the American Revolution, Ireland, colonialism and India, and the French Revolution. This volume also includes excerpts from his letters and an informative Introduction surveying Burke's life, ideas, and his reception and influence in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.