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Edmund Burke

Reflections on the Revolution in France (Penguin Classics) Paperback – December 16, 1982

by Edmund Burke (Author), Conor Cruise O'Brien (Introduction)

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‘To make a revolution is to subvert the ancient state of our country; and no common reasons are called for to justify so violent a proceeding’

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.

Conor Cruise O’Brien’s introduction examines the contemporary political situation in England and Ireland and its influence on Burke’s point of view. He highlights Burke’s brilliant grasp of social and political forces and discusses why the book has remained so significant for over two centuries.

For more than seventy years, Penguin has been the leading publisher of classic literature in the English-speaking world. With more than 1,700 titles, Penguin Classics represents a global bookshelf of the best works throughout history and across genres and disciplines. Readers trust the series to provide authoritative texts enhanced by introductions and notes by distinguished scholars and contemporary authors, as well as up-to-date translations by award-winning translators.

Print length

400 pages
Language

English
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Penguin Classics
Publication date

December 16, 1982
Dimensions

5.05 x 0.99 x 7.78 inches
ISBN-10

0140432043
ISBN-13

978-0140432046
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About the Author

Edmund Burke (1729-1797) was born in Dublin and educated at Trinity College. A lifelong member of Parliament, Burke was the author of A Philosophical Enquiry into the Sublime and Beautiful, A Vindication of Natural Society, and Reflections on the Revolution in France.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Penguin Classics; Reprint edition (December 16, 1982)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 400 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0140432043
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0140432046
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 10.7 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.05 x 0.99 x 7.78 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #324,307 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #415 in European Politics Books
- #443 in French History (Books)
- #1,071 in History & Theory of Politics

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Marc Labonne

Great

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on June 30, 2023

Great

What is most brilliant is that Burke Was clearsighted about the problems the ...

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on June 16, 2018

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I must reread the book once more to make definit opinion on the different problems the book describes.What is most brilliant is that Burke
Was clearsighted about the problems the revolution created in the making of a New state when the old regime was torn away,The property
Of the Church,the property of the nobles were taken and the laws of the state had not Been ready for major changes.To make big changes
You must be prepared with a goverment,New laws and the wise action in keeping some of the old traditions to show the people that You have
Some respect for the history of your country like England etc.in the glorious revolution.Burke SAW that sertain groupes of people had no power
And This could start a revolution in other countries also.Some authors like Edward Gibbon and Jacob Burchardt (both very famous) did not like
Revolutions either.The Russian revolution was May be more necessary,but made the country ready for Stalin and in France for Napoleon.
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Geoff Puterbaugh

A classic, & still relevant (!) to our times

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on July 1, 2010

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I don't think anyone involved in my education ever required me to read this book, which I find one of the most interesting books of the last 500 years.

As an example of Burke's thinking, let's turn to the "natural rights" of man: "life, liberty, & the pursuit of happiness." The traditional defense of these arguments has been that they derive from God, or from Providence, or from Nature (whatever "Nature" with-a-capital-N might turn out to be!)

But by now, there is an entirely different, Burkean argument for these rights. I can't put the argument with Burke's eloquence, but he would say that these are **American** rights, declared at the founding of our nation, and since then handed down from generation to generation as a priceless birthright, as the proper inheritance of every American citizen. They don't have to "derive" from anywhere except the American political tradition, the American political inheritance, which we should be on constant guard to protect, so that we may hand the same precious birthright on, to our children and grandchildren.

Burke's analysis of the French National Assembly is masterful, and also contains lessons for today. What impressed Burke strongly was the devotion of the revolutionaries to abstract ideas, and the fact that they delivered the government of France into the hands of incompetents. Almost 300 of the 600 were petty lawyers, plus some illiterate peasants and a few merchants --- "and you expect these people to run a government?" Burke would ask, adding, "especially after all legitimate power had been destroyed?" He tellingly notes that NONE of the members of the National Assembly had any experience with government, and so (obviously) they were not up to the task.

Compare and contrast this with the current situation in Washington, where almost none of the appointees or czars has any experience with running a business, much less a government. Burke would be saying, with sarcasm, "Well, what would you expect?" You cannot govern through mere abstractions such as "Hope" and "Change." If you want to deal with the outside world, you need a Secretary of State with some experience in foreign affairs. If you want to help the economy recover from a bad shock, you need some people with experience at doing so. If you want to plug an oil leak, do NOT send out for more professors --- send out for people with experience at plugging oil leaks.

Burke points out a huge list of other problems, such as the mob in Paris demanding that ALL bishops be immediately hung from the lampposts, the endless series of murders, assassinations, and "expropriations" which led France into chaos, and then the Great Terror. By the time Napoleon swings by to pick up the broken pieces, and begin his own career as a murderer of Europeans by the millions, you may at least find yourself wondering whether Edmund Burke was not right: establishing and running a successful government is not a task for children or for ideologues. An essential factor is respect for what has gone before, and the old American attitude of "if it ain't broke, don't fix it."

I recommend this book very highly, and would only caution that it makes for slow reading, because every single sentence is pregnant with thought.

42 people found this helpful

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Count of Monkee Cristo

No Margins :(

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 8, 2021

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I purchased this publication because my professor required it. I love the look of the book, but I personally need more space in the margins to write. I also prefer smaller pages of reading so I can remember where certain parts of the reading are on the page. When the pages are written like a single-spaced, normal size paper, it gets really tough for me.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on May 5, 2017

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Love Edmund Burke. He was, I believe, one of the greatest writers and statesmen of his time. His command of the English language was superlative. He cannot be surpassed for eloquence. Anyone who has even a cursory interest in the French Revolution cannot ignore his writings. Burke stands like a great and majestic British Oak tree underneath whose strong and spreading branches you can find shade and take rest.
Burke was fighting, in reality, proto-communism. He saw with prescient clarity where the Jacobin philosophies would lead. He sounded a clear warning about the dire and destructive consequences that the French Revolution would unleash.
He immediately saw that the French Revolution was not at all what it ostensibly claimed to be —Liberty, Equality, Fraternity. It was instead a rebellion; a rebellion against authority-- any authority- all authority- in any form. The heralded “empire of light and reason” would bring forth a dark and dangerous ochlocracy.
Of course, if you’re any student of history you will have heard of the debate between Burke and Thomas Paine. Although Paine does well in arguing his case- his points do have weight and merit, he cannot approach Burke in eloquence, beauty of language or power of metaphor.
Burke will stand, as he has stood for over two hundred years, as a beacon and light over and against those who have claimed- and continue to claim- that only they know what’s best for mankind.

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Blair

Reflections on the Social Contract

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on November 7, 2015

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“Better to be despised for too anxious apprehensions than ruined by too confident a security.”

Edmund Burke deeply distrusted the confident rationality of the leaders of the French Revolution. In this book, written before that revolution went disastrously wrong, he essentially predicted the reign of terror and eventual seizure of power by a dictator. Burke’s insights are well worth considering, and should not be entirely dismissed for his real shortcomings or for being on the wrong side of history. He saw society as an intricate web of connections that we should be careful of messing with, telling us,

“The nature of man is intricate; the objects of society are of the greatest possible complexity: and therefore no simple disposition or direction of power can be suitable either to man’s nature, or to the quality of his affairs.”

This complexity means actions often have unintended consequences:

“The science of constructing a commonwealth, or renovating it, or reforming it, is, like every other experimental science, not to be taught à priori. Nor is it a short experience that can instruct us in that practical science: because the real effects of moral causes are not always immediate; but that which in the first instance is prejudicial may be excellent in its remoter operation; and its excellence may arise even from the ill effects it produces in the beginning. The reverse also happens: and very plausible schemes, with very pleasing commencements, have often shameful and lamentable conclusions.”

This gives the praiseworthy impression of an evidence-based approach to understand how a society actually works. It is a good start, but scientific method also requires a sceptical examination of that evidence. Burke fails us by mythologizing the past to the point of seriously misrepresenting it. He even warns against questioning the legitimacy of institutions (what science is all about) because even that can be destabilizing.

But given the wisdom (such as it is) from the past, the connecting role of inheritance is a crucial process for Burke. As he puts it,

“Society is indeed a contract. It is a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born.”

The Virtue of Prejudice
-------------------------------

Today the word “prejudice” is almost synonymous with irrationality and the evils of the past. Burke has a rather different view, given his distrust for glib rationality and his veneration of the past:

“In this enlightened age I am bold enough to confess that instead of casting away all our old prejudices, we cherish them to a very considerable degree. The longer they have lasted, and the more generally they have prevailed, the more we cherish them. We are afraid to put man to live and trade each on his own private stock of reason; because we suspect that this stock in each man is small, and that the individuals would do better to avail themselves of the general bank and capital of nations and of ages.”

Note that Burke observes that people are less rational than they think they are, a fact confirmed by modern psychology. That is why reasonable looking proposals often do not work as intended. He continues,

“Prejudice is of ready application in the emergency; it previously engages the mind in a steady course of wisdom and virtue, and does not leave the man hesitating in the moment of decision, sceptical, puzzled, and unresolved. Prejudice renders a man’s virtue his habit; and not a series of unconnected acts. Through just prejudice, his duty becomes a part of his nature.”

To Burke, prejudice is the wisdom we inherit from past ages. We should not dismiss that wisdom lightly. But in reality all was not always quite so wise in the past, and social change can make even that which was once wise, obsolete. While we may inherit our rights from past relationships, we also inherit the wrongs.

Religion as a Foundation of the State
--------------------------------------------------

“We know, and what is better, we feel inwardly, that religion is the basis of civil society, and the source of all good and of all comfort.”

Burke sees religion as providing the morality that binds a society together. The church is there to both support the authority of the state, and to rein in those to whom the state gives authority.

“The consecration of the state, by a state religious establishment, is necessary also to operate with a wholesale awe upon free citizens; because, in order to secure their freedom, they must enjoy some determinate portion of power. All persons possessing any portion of power ought to be strongly and awfully impressed with an idea that they act in trust: and that they are to account for their conduct in that trust to the one great Master, Author, and Founder of society.”

The actual content of the theology seems to be unimportant to him. The church’s role is to support the state, not criticize it. “No sound ought to be heard in the church but the healing voice of Christian charity,” he tells us, objecting to a sermon sympathetic with the goals of the French Revolution. The problem is Burke relies entirely on religious ethics to restrain the ruling class. History show this is often not enough.

The Problem with Idealism
-----------------------------------

“I cannot conceive how any man can have brought himself to that pitch of presumption, to consider his country as nothing but carte blanche, upon which he may scribble whatever he pleases. A man full of warm, speculative benevolence may wish his society otherwise constituted than he finds it; but a good patriot, and a true politician, always considers how he shall make the most of the existing materials of his country. A disposition to preserve, and an ability to improve, taken together, would be my standard of a statesman. Everything else is vulgar in the conception, perilous in the execution.”

For Burke, ‘improve’ means restraining certain excesses that violate the existing social contract. He does not seek to change the underlying structure that makes these excesses possible. However, he is properly critical of applying simple-minded ideals to the complexity of a living society. He sees rights as something one inherits from the past, closely linked to the responsibilities that come with them. In contrast,

“The pretended rights of these theorists are all extremes: and in proportion as they are metaphysically true, they are morally and politically false. Their abstract perfection is their practical defect.”

He is also capable of making the same point in simple language, such as when he asks,

“What is the use of discussing a man’s abstract right to food or medicine? The question is upon the method of procuring and administering them. In that deliberation I shall always advise to call in the aid of the farmer and the physician, rather than the professor of metaphysics.”

I agree, but maybe we should ask the advice of an economist, who would point out that the feudal system provides little incentive to increase food production. The large landholdings that Burke so loved, along with the forced labor of the peasants he declines to mention, remind me of the collective farms imposed by Stalin.

Edmund Burke Foreshadows Karl Marx
----------------------------------------------------

While reading Burke I keep comparing his thinking to that of Karl Marx. On the positive side, they both reject an idealist conception of society, insisting on the importance of the relationships between people and classes. Marx called his view historical materialism. Burke correctly saw the crucial role played by social morality, in his case implemented by religion. Marx neglected morality (‘false consciousness’) in favor of economic forces.

[Today, conservatives ignore the role of social morality when they privatize parts of government. When the ethic of public service is lost, there is nothing to restrain the looting of public resources, which is the frequent consequence of these actions. Enron provides a good example.]

On the negative side, they both had a collectivist view of society. The distinctive achievements of Western civilization largely come from the power and initiative of the free individual. And both ideologies were ultimately based on myths: for Burke the idealized past, and for Marx the ideal of a future Communism.

While conservatives back unrestrained change through markets, today’s liberal environmentalists have fully adopted the spirit of Edmund Burke with respect to the physical environment. Our natural inheritance is held to be sacred, and any changes to it are feared as being disruptive to that complex web of ecological relationships we do not fully understand. Maybe we should have the same respect for our social environment.

Turning Sacred Land into Monstrous Money
----------------------------------------------------------

This book was written at the beginning of the industrial revolution, before its effects were fully felt. Burke is already troubled by the changing values that he already sees, complaining,

“But the age of chivalry is gone. That of sophisters, economists, and calculators, has succeeded; and the glory of Europe is extinguished forever. Never, never more shall we behold that generous loyalty to rank and sex, that proud submission, that dignified obedience, that subordination of the heart, which kept alive, even in servitude itself, the spirit of an exalted freedom.”

He has an almost mystical attachment to the value of land ownership handed down through the generations. He complains that,

“Perhaps a full tenth part of all the land in France has now acquired the worst and most pernicious part of the evil of a paper circulation. By this means the spirit of money-jobbing and speculation goes into the mass of land itself, and incorporates with it. By this kind of operation, that species of property becomes (as it were) volatilized; it assumes an unnatural and monstrous activity.”

Only a tenth! Burke had no idea of the unnatural and monstrous activity the industrial revolution was about to unleash upon his glorious traditional landscape. The irony is that today’s so-called conservatism is about giving markets the unimpeded ability to transform society, no matter what the social cost.

Real Progress Demands Understanding Reality
---------------------------------------------------------------

I found Burke’s thinking in this work to be fascinating and thought provoking. He has a deep view of how society works, seeing it as like an ecosystem, and often expresses it well. His insights into the perils of idealism were correct at the time, and continue to be true today. But in the end his analysis was betrayed by an idealistic veneration of the past, and a failure to understand the importance of the individual. Like the idealists he criticizes, Burke was also an intellectual with an inordinate fondness for certain ideals.

Today the landed aristocracy of Burke’s time has been replaced by largely unrestrained corporations. They are not only more powerful than the old landowners, they also provide us with the material goods we crave. They are not about to disappear. To manage the undesirable side effects, we need Burke’s concept of understanding society as it really is, but without the romantic myths that obscure the problems. We also need a vision of how to move forward, because if it were up to Burke we would still be living in the squalor of the Middle Ages. But idealist solutions frequently result in a return to the barbarism of the Middle Ages, as with the French and Russian Revolutions and the Arab Spring. Realistic analysis, freed from the myths of the left and right, is difficult but necessary if we really want to progress.

So, is this book worth reading? It is easier to start with a modern summary, as I did with "The Great Debate: Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine, and the Birth of Right and Left" by Yuval Levin. But I found reading his original work gave me a richer understanding of what Burke was really about. I skimmed over long passages of historical details to find the type of philosophical ideas that I have quoted here. I am glad I made the effort.

5 people found this helpful

Cristiano Mestriner

A origem do conservadorismo

Reviewed in Brazil 🇧🇷 on July 17, 2013

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Esse livro é fundamental para quem quer entender o surgimento do pensamento intelectual conservador. Burke com uma lucidez magistral desmonta literalmente aquele que talvez seja o maior fetiche da humanidade, a Revolução Francesa. Eu quando jovem era marxista e acreditava no socialismo. O tempo foi passando e eu fui ficando mais moderado até conhecer Burke e Tocqueville. Lendo e relendo esse livro pude notar quão mal formada é nossa intelectualidade, que nos ensina Rousseau, Marx, Bourdier, Foucault, mas nunca leu um gigante como Burke nem cita que existe um autor como ele. Um livro indispensável.

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tomomori

保守思想の古典中の古典。

Reviewed in Japan 🇯🇵 on September 26, 2015

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エドマンド・バーク（1729年-1797年）が100円で読める時代になったとは。かつて私がいくら払ったことか（…900円だ）。という訳で、我がキンドルに100円の名著を収め、ペーパーバック版に書いたレビューを改訂の上、再投稿させて頂く。いまフト思い出したのだが、リーマンショック後に金融メディアが爆発していた頃、ある夜に私はアメリカの金融番組をボンヤリ観ていた。リスク管理部門の方が識者コメンテイターとして登場していたが、彼は動揺し怒っていた。そしてこう語っていたもんだった。「リスク管理（VaRのことだろう）は単なる数学だ。何で単なる数字を信用するのか。投資に成功する人間は歴史書を読んでいるのだ。私の知人の有名な投資家はエドマンド・バークを読んでいた。エドマンド・バークだ！」と。アタクシはボンヤリと、自分は歴史書好きだしエドマンド・バークも読んだが「有能な投資家」じゃないよなぁ、と思ったもんだった。以上、非常にどうでもいい回想。
『フランス革命の省察』は今年に入って新訳が登場している。そちらは未読だが、バークの文章がどんな日本語になったかは興味があるのでそのうち覗いてみるかも。しかし英語が読める方は名文の誉れ高い原文を読もう。シェイクスピア英語のような世界ではないので、熱意があれば読める。普段はロクな英文を読んでいないのであまり感じないが、私はこういう英文を読む時、「英語が読めて良かった」と感じる。
「フランス革命」と聞いて「ベルばら？」と答える痴的なワタクシが本書の内容を喋々する気はない。噂によく聞くエドマンド・バークの名文を読んでみましょう、という程度の気分で手に取った次第。心もとない理解度ではあるが、古典的教養が血肉化した散文で、名文句がざくざく登場するので高揚感が続く。

以下の言葉は非常に有名。
"Society is indeed a contract …… a partnership not only between those who are living, but between those who are living, those who are dead, and those who are to be born."

現代アメリカ社会についての考察かしら、という投機社会についての言及もあり。
"The truly melancholy part of the policy of systematically making a nation of gamesters is this; that tho' all are forced to play, few can understand the game; and fewer still are in a condition to avail themselves of the knowledge. The many must be the dupes of the few who conduct the machine of these speculations."

こんな言葉も凄い。
“Kings will be tyrants by policy when subjects are rebels from principle.”

“Wise men will apply their remedies to vices, not to names; to the causes of evil which are permanent, not to occasional organs by which they act, and the transitory modes in which they appear.”

“To give freedom is still more easy. It is not necessary to guide; it only requires to let go the rein. But to form a free government; that is, to temper together these opposite elements of liberty and restraint in one work, requires much thought, deep reflection, a sagacious, powerful, and combining mind.”

ページを繰りながら頭の中にグルグルしていた疑問は以下だった。「このような偉大な良識・常識の声は果たして集団的熱狂に対抗出来るのだろうか？」。ご興味のある方には、同時代のフランスの王党派にして保守主義者（権威主義者とも言われる）、ジョゼフ・ド・メーストルの『Considerations on France』もおススメ（原文は仏語だが英訳あり）。

9 people found this helpful

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Yan

Obra Prima

Reviewed in Brazil 🇧🇷 on November 26, 2017

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Grande clássico do conservadorismo, que nas escolas passa batido ou é confundido com mero reacionarismo. A tão idealizada pela esquerda moderna Revolução Francesa, que ascendeu um governo mais autoritário e mais belicoso (Napoleão), é desconstruida pelo brilhante autor.

2 people found this helpful

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Thanh Huynh

Got the book in time, and the premise of ...

Reviewed in Canada 🇨🇦 on August 9, 2017

Verified Purchase

Got the book in time, and the premise of the book is very interesting but this is a very LONG and heavy read with no chapters what so ever. Also,l if anyone already is aware of Edmund Burkes writing, he does fill his work up with jargin and does tend to jump back and forth so pay attention when you read this book

One person found this helpful

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Reflections on the Revolution in France (Penguin Classics) Paperback – December 16, 1982

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