Enjoy fast, free delivery, exclusive deals, and award-winning movies & TV shows with Prime
Try Prime
and start saving today with fast, free delivery
Amazon Prime includes:
Fast, FREE Delivery is available to Prime members. To join, select "Try Amazon Prime and start saving today with Fast, FREE Delivery" below the Add to Cart button.
Amazon Prime members enjoy:- Cardmembers earn 5% Back at Amazon.com with a Prime Credit Card.
- Unlimited Free Two-Day Delivery
- Streaming of thousands of movies and TV shows with limited ads on Prime Video.
- A Kindle book to borrow for free each month - with no due dates
- Listen to over 2 million songs and hundreds of playlists
- Unlimited photo storage with anywhere access
Important: Your credit card will NOT be charged when you start your free trial or if you cancel during the trial period. If you're happy with Amazon Prime, do nothing. At the end of the free trial, your membership will automatically upgrade to a monthly membership.
Buy new:
$12.69$12.69
FREE delivery: Thursday, March 14 on orders over $35.00 shipped by Amazon.
Ships from: Amazon.com Sold by: Amazon.com
Buy used: $10.98
Download the free Kindle app and start reading Kindle books instantly on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.
Read instantly on your browser with Kindle for Web.
Using your mobile phone camera - scan the code below and download the Kindle app.
Reflections on the Revolution in France (Penguin Classics) Paperback – December 16, 1982
Purchase options and add-ons
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 length400 pages
- LanguageEnglish
- PublisherPenguin Classics
- Publication dateDecember 16, 1982
- Dimensions5.05 x 0.99 x 7.78 inches
- ISBN-100140432043
- ISBN-13978-0140432046
The Amazon Book Review
Book recommendations, author interviews, editors' picks, and more. Read it now.
Frequently bought together

Similar items that may deliver to you quickly
Editorial Reviews
About the Author
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: #307,009 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #326 in French History (Books)
- #334 in European Politics Books
- #1,012 in History & Theory of Politics
- Customer Reviews:
Important information
To report an issue with this product or seller, click here.
About the author

Discover more of the author’s books, see similar authors, read author blogs and more
Customer reviews
Customer Reviews, including Product Star Ratings help customers to learn more about the product and decide whether it is the right product for them.
To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Instead, our system considers things like how recent a review is and if the reviewer bought the item on Amazon. It also analyzed reviews to verify trustworthiness.
Learn more how customers reviews work on AmazonReviews with images
-
Top reviews
Top reviews from the United States
There was a problem filtering reviews right now. Please try again later.
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.
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.
Was This a good solution?
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.












