The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 02

Burke, Edmund, 1729-1797Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 4.3
Word count
943K words
Chapters
95

Tags

English Originals Politics Political PhilosophyEnglish ParliamentConservatismWestern ThoughtIntellectual CommentaryEloquent Prose

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 02 (of 12) by Edmund BurkeAuthor: Burke, Edmund, 1729-1797,Language: English, Class: DA: History: General and Eastern Hemisphere: Great Britain, Ireland, Central Europe, Release Date: Feb 28, 2005

Editor's review

This is the second volume of the twelve-volume collected works of Edmund Burke, a compilation of his political writings and speeches. Burke is known for his eloquence, dense argumentation, and moral judgment; this volume continues his engagement with practical politics and institutional questions, and is well suited to observing the rhetorical modes and argumentative structures of eighteenth-century British political debate. Its value lies not in offering concise conclusions but in displaying a conservative argumentative style grounded in historical experience, precedent, and moral principle, which is instructive for understanding the institutional reverence and gradual reform ideas in later political thought. Reading it requires some background in British history and the history of political thought; otherwise long sentences and allusions can bog the reader down. But if approached by selection—reading the shorter, more focused pieces first and returning to the long speeches later—one can grasp the thread of argument reasonably well. For researchers it is an indispensable primary text; for general readers it is more like a vein of thought that requires patient excavation.

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Reading tips

  1. Begin with the volume's headnotes, start with shorter pieces on focused themes, then tackle the long speeches.
  2. Annotate as you read the precedents and historical events Burke cites to trace the basis of his arguments.
  3. Read alongside works on eighteenth-century British political history to lower the barrier to understanding.
  4. For long sentences, excerpt and break them down: grasp the argument first, then revisit the rhetorical elaboration.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
  16. 16
  17. 17
  18. 18
  19. 19
  20. 20
  21. 21
  22. 22
  23. 23
  24. 24
  25. 25
  26. 26
  27. 27
  28. 28
  29. 29
  30. 30
  31. 31
  32. 32
  33. 33
  34. 34
  35. 35
  36. 36
  37. 37
  38. 38
  39. 39
  40. 40
  41. 41
  42. 42
  43. 43
  44. 44
  45. 45
  46. 46
  47. 47
  48. 48
  49. 49
  50. 50
  51. 51
  52. 52
  53. 53
  54. 54
  55. 55
  56. 56
  57. 57
  58. 58
  59. 59
  60. 60
  61. 61
  62. 62
  63. 63
  64. 64
  65. 65
  66. 66
  67. 67
  68. 68
  69. 69
  70. 70
  71. 71
  72. 72
  73. 73
  74. 74
  75. 75
  76. 76
  77. 77
  78. 78
  79. 79
  80. 80
  81. 81
  82. 82
  83. 83
  84. 84
  85. 85
  86. 86
  87. 87
  88. 88
  89. 89
  90. 90
  91. 91
  92. 92
  93. 93
  94. 94
  95. 95

FAQ

What does this volume contain? It is the second volume of the twelve-volume Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, collecting his political writings and speeches. The specific contents depend on the edition's arrangement; readers should consult that edition's table of contents and treat it as a compilation of Burke's political writing rather than a continuous treatise.
Should one read an introduction to intellectual history before Burke? It is advisable to know at least the basic outlines of eighteenth-century British parliamentary politics and party controversies; otherwise the many precedents, figures, and allusions are hard to place. Reading a concise introduction to British political thought first and then the original text will make it easier to follow the practical issues his arguments address.
How can general readers avoid giving up halfway? Don't force yourself to read it all. Choose shorter, clearly focused pieces first; look up the background before reading, extract the core argument while reading, and restate it in your own words afterward. Handle one piece at a time; after several, return to the long speeches and the resistance will be much less.

This site is an index: you start “Search all sources” in your browser, and the entries it lists all point to third-party sites; please judge their availability yourself.

About the author

Burke, Edmund, 1729-1797 Author

Edmund Burke (1729-1797) was a British political thinker, pamphleteer and orator whose writings and speeches have had a lasting influence on political theory and the conservative tradition. This site holds sixteen of his works, chiefly the multi-volume The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, together with Burke's Speech on Conciliation with America and Selections from the Speeches and Writings of Edmund Burke. These texts comprise parliamentary speeches, political essays and letters, addressing such subjects as the American colonies, the French Revolution, political institutions and moral philosophy. His style is eloquent yet restrained, grounding particular circumstances in general principles and arguing through contrast and historical example. As the library's fields for nationality and dates are incomplete and public information is limited, no biographical details are inferred here; readers may instead trace his political rhetoric and thought through the collected works and speech selections above.