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Reflections on the Revolution in France (Oxford World's Classics)
 
 
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Reflections on the Revolution in France (Oxford World's Classics) (Paperback)

by Edmund Burke (Author), L. G. Mitchell (Editor) "You are pleased to call again, and with some earnestness, for my thoughts on the late proceedings in France ..." (more)
4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)

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Product details

  • Paperback: 352 pages
  • Publisher: Oxford Paperbacks; New edition edition (2 Sep 1999)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0192839780
  • ISBN-13: 978-0192839787
  • Product Dimensions: 19.6 x 12.7 x 2 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 237,606 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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    #38 in  Books > History > Essays, Journals, Letters & True Accounts > 16th-18th Centuries

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Product Description

Review
"Oxford does the student and scholarly world a service by making Reflections available in an affordable edition."--Barbara B. Davis, Antioch College
"Print is clear and the price is right."--Dr. V. Lyle Haskins, Northeastern State University
"Burke's views are as pertinent today as they were 200 years ago. His comments and criticisms of the French Revolution can be applied to 20th century revolutions. It is interesting that his reflections are echoed by so many revisionist French Revolution historians in the past several years. This work allows students to evaluate the events of the revolution from a different perspective."--Professor Jeanne A. Ojala, University of Utah
"I have hoped someday to find a "Reader's Digest" version of Burke. You have produced one, a real service to the profession! Great introduction and bibliography."--Professor Brian E. Strayer, Andrews University
"The annotation of this text will be a great help to students. Mitchell's introduction is likewise clear and to the point."--Marilyn Morris, University of North Texas


Product Description
Edmund Burke was the dominant political thinker of the last quarter of the eighteenth century in England. His reputation depends less on his role as a practising politician than on his ability to set contemporary problems within a wider context of political theory. Above all, he commented on change. He tried to teach lessons about how change should be managed, what limits should not be transgressed, and what should be reverently preserved. Burke's generation was much in need of advice on these matters. The Industrial Revolution, the American Revolution, and catastrophically, the French Revolution presented challenges of terrible proportions. They could promise paradise or threaten anarchy. Burke was acutely aware of how high the stakes were. The Reflections on the Revolution in France was a dire warning of the consequences that would follow the mismanagement of change.

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You are pleased to call again, and with some earnestness, for my thoughts on the late proceedings in France. Read the first page
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars One of the greatest works of politics; a classic., 8 April 2006
Edmund Burke's tour de force, demolishing Jacobin upstarts and naive aristocrats alike, is a witty, intelligent and lively work which has rightly gone down in history as a seminal conservative text.

These reflections were first published in 1790, around a year after the Revolution began; before the monarchy had been overthrown and before the King was executed; before the Reign of Terror began which would result in great bloodshed. Burke was initially dismissed as an alarmist reactionary by many but as the Revolution culminated in the grotesque abuses of the guillotine and the rise to power of a military dictator, which he predicted in this text, Burke was hailed as a prophet and was vindicated in his wise warnings.

Without regard to fashionable and trendy abstract theories Burke defended prejudice, tradition and custom against the 'enlightened' intellectuals who thought they ought to rule in place of those born in the purple. Burke claimed that society is a contract, although a contract between those who are living, those who are dead and those who are yet to be born. Those who are alive must not posses dictatorial powers over the majority constituents of this contract, the dead and the unborn, but must work in accordance with traditions and be aware that they are but trustees of an inheritance which they must pass on to the next generation.

For Burke prejudices were the 'bank and capital of nations and of ages' which make habits out of virtues. Prejudices give people instinctive responses in moments of decision and do not leave people hesitating in an emergency. The revolutionaries rejected all ideas repugnant to their individual reasoning and were bigotedly self-satisfied in their own way of thinking; they had 'no respect for the wisdom of others; but they pay it off by a very full measure of confidence in their own'. By destroying established authority on the grounds that it was irrational or unjust the revolutionaries eroded the stability of their country and made the intervention of a 'popular general' who would restore order inevitable. This was borne out when General Napoleon took control over France on the 18th Brumaire in 1799 and proceeded to try and conquer all of Europe until finally defeated by the counter-revolutionary forces of Britain and Prussia at Waterloo in 1815.

The description of Burke's visit to the French court where he witnessed Marie Antoinette on the horizon is probably one of the finest pieces of English literature I have ever read. The emotions; awe, outrage and anger all wrapped up to express Burke's indignation that 'the age of chivalry is gone' and that the 'glory of Europe is extinguished for ever'. According to one of Burke's correspondents Marie Antoinette was shown this passage whilst she was held captive and before she could finish reading it she had burst into tears and took considerable time to recover before she could read the rest.

One must remember that Burke was writing this letter to a French nobleman who obviously knew more than Burke on what was happening in France and so would not have needed a narrative of the political goings-on. My only complaint is that this Oxford edition index is inadequate. It lists names but no concepts whatsoever, which makes it practically useless for students.
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1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Fascinating historical work, 9 Jul 2008
To begin with: this book is a pamphlet, not (as I had expected) a treatise. It is a call to action about a specific event, not a political programme. Readers expecting a statement of the conservative creed may be disappointed. Hence the 4, not 5 stars.

As a historical document, however, the Reflections are invaluable. Burke published his point-by-point assault on the French Revolution in 1790, when the revolution was still widely popular in Britain. He was an English MP and his public, even if the Reflections are formulated as two letters to a French aristocrat, was British political opinion.

First, his book contrasts admirably the gradual, and ultimately more successful, British path to democracy to the French. Indeed the core of his argument is that the revolution laid waste to tradition, depriving its end system of the essential legitimacy that stems from it. Second, Burke was the first to warn - years before the `terror' - that radical change, once initiated, would be exceedingly difficult to stop. Third, he makes penetrating (and scathing) observations on the role of class renegades; his dissection of their motivations is striking and finds application in all situations of political upheaval. Burke's warning on radical change was vindicated not just in France, but repeatedly in Europe through the 19th and early 20th centuries. With respect to the French Revolution, he understood that any stabilisation depended on solving the question of church property, which the revolutionaries were already bungling (one smiles at a British MP springing in defence of the catholic church in the still popular days of `no popery!', but the analysis has to be cold-bloodedly correct).

The only rebuttal to Burke's argument is that the status quo was not an option either. His picture of pre-revolutionary France is on the rosy side; unlike the British, the French monarchy was in deep crisis. Nevertheless, I strongly believe this should be taught in France alongside the more hagiographical stuff. I am French, by the way, and an admirer of the revolution.
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4 of 17 people found the following review helpful:
3.0 out of 5 stars A bit of a misleading title..., 4 Aug 2004
By A Customer
This book draws many comparrissons between the English government and the French during the eighteenth century. However, if you are looking for detailed information or concise opinions you may find Burke's writing hard to digest (I certainly did). Although valuable as a source of the time, it was, for my purposes, a bit light on the facts.
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