Synopses & Reviews
This famed Payne edition of Select Works of Edmund Burke is universally revered by students of English history and political thought. Volume 1 contains Burke's brilliant defense of the American colonists' complaints of British policy, including Thoughts on the Cause of the Present Discontents (1770), Speech on American Taxation (1774), and Speech on Conciliation (1775). Volume 2 consists of Burke's renowned Reflections on the Revolution in France. Volume 3 presents Burke's Four Letters on the Proposals for Peace with the Regicide Directory of France -- generally styled Letters on a Regicide Peace (1795-1796). The Letters, Payne believed, deserve to rank even before [Burke's] Reflections, and to be called the writer's masterpiece. Faithfully reproduced in each volume are E. J. Payne's notes and introductory essays. Francis Canavan, one of the great Burke scholars of the twentieth century, has added forewords and a biographical note on Payne. In the companion volume, Canavan has collected seven of Burke's major contributions to English political thinking on representation in Parliament, on economics, on the political oppression of the peoples of India and Ireland, and on the enslavement of African blacks. The volume concludes with a select bibliography on Edmund Burke.
Synopsis
Originally published by Oxford University Press in the 1890s, the famed three-volume Payne edition of
Select Works is universally revered by students of English history and political thought. Faithfully reproduced in each volume are E. J. Payne's notes and introductory essays. Francis Canavan, one of the great Burke scholars of the twentieth century, has added forewords.
Volume 2 consists of Burke's most renowned work, Reflections on the Revolution in France. In it, he excoriates French revolutionary leaders for recklessly destroying France's venerable institutions and way of life. He attempts not only to explain the events of the new revolution to his readers but also to persuade them that the revolution menaces the civilization of Europe in general and that of Britain in particular. In addition, he articulates a coherent political countertheory that organizes his own beliefs about God, humanity, and society.
This is Burke's most famous work, for over two centuries read, discussed, and pondered by thousands of students and general readers as well as by professional scholars.
Francis Canavan (1917-2009) was Professor of Political Science at Fordham University from 1966 until his retirement in 1988.