Disputed Heritage of Burke

Burke, Disraeli and Churchill, The Politics of Perserverance, by Stephen R. Graubard. Harvard, $5.00 Edmund Burke and the Revolt Against the Eighteenth Century, by Alfred Cobban. Barnes and Noble, $3.75 The Philosophy of Edmund Burke, by Louis I. Bredvold and Ralph G. Ross. University of Michigan, $3.50 Lord Acton observed of Burke that “systems of scientific thought have been built up by famous scholars on the fragments that fell from his table. Great literary fortunes have been made by men who traded on the hundredth part of him.” This was true of Acton himself, for his politics, his morals and his religion were, in one sense, the product of a continual dialogue with Edmund Burke. Lesser men than Acton have made politics, histories, philosophies and fortunes of Burke; and three recent books on Burke are indication enough that the spirit of enterprise is not dead.

But of these three only Professor Alfred Cobban’s Edmund Burke and the Revolt Against the Eighteenth Century is a book of more than transient interest and temporary value. First published in 1929 and now republished in its original form, it has long been recognized as an essential contribution to the understanding of Burke. Cobban rightly rejects the attempts of the “new conservatism” (whatever that is), to provide anancestry for itself by annexing the name and reputation of Burke. This is the chief defect of the anthology by Louis I. Bredvold and Ralph G. Ross, The Philosophy of Edmund Burke. The tone and spirit of its introduction are less than scholarly and the selections are tendentious without being appropriate.

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Stephen J. Tonsor

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Burke, Disraeli and Churchill, The Politics of Perserverance, by Stephen R. Graubard. Harvard, $5.00 Edmund Burke and the Revolt Against the Eighteenth Century, by Alfred Cobban. Barnes and Noble, $3.75 The Philosophy of Edmund Burke, by Louis I. Bredvold and Ralph G. Ross. University of Michigan, $3.50 Lord Acton observed of Burke that “systems of scientific thought have been built up by famous scholars on the fragments that fell from his table. Great literary fortunes have been made by men who traded on the hundredth part of him.” This was true of Acton himself, for his politics, his morals and his religion were, in one sense, the product of a continual dialogue with Edmund Burke. Lesser men than Acton have made politics, histories, philosophies and fortunes of Burke; and three recent books on Burke are indication enough that the spirit of enterprise is not dead.

But of these three only Professor Alfred Cobban’s Edmund Burke and the Revolt Against the Eighteenth Century is a book of more than transient interest and temporary value. First published in 1929 and now republished in its original form, it has long been recognized as an essential contribution to the understanding of Burke. Cobban rightly rejects the attempts of the “new conservatism” (whatever that is), to provide anancestry for itself by annexing the name and reputation of Burke. This is the chief defect of the anthology by Louis I. Bredvold and Ralph G. Ross, The Philosophy of Edmund Burke. The tone and spirit of its introduction are less than scholarly and the selections are tendentious without being appropriate.