The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. 12

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

Rating 4.0
Word count
777K words
Chapters
78

Tags

English Originals Politics Power GameConservatismCivic AwarenessIntellectual EnlightenmentPolitical ThoughtSocial CritiqueWestern ThoughtMoral DilemmaIntellectual CommentaryPolitical Pamphlet

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. 12 (of 12) by Edmund Burke. Author: Burke, Edmund, 1729-1797. Language: English. Class: DA: History: General and Eastern Hemisphere: Great Britain, Ireland, Central Europe. Release Date: May 5, 2006

Editor's review

This is the twelfth and final volume of Edmund Burke's collected works, classified under British and European history. Burke was a major eighteenth-century British political thinker and orator, known for tightly argued prose and forceful rhetoric, addressing constitutional tradition, political reform, and historical judgment. For Chinese readers, the value of this volume lies not in reading it as a continuous narrative but in observing how an eighteenth-century political figure used speeches and essays to engage in public controversy, and in understanding the historical context of his conservative thought. Because it is a collected works rather than an introductory guide, the pieces are not necessarily linked by a continuous narrative; it is better suited to selective reading by theme, with notes and background materials. The public-domain eBook is convenient for searching the original text and can serve as supplementary material for courses in the history of political thought and British history. Without relevant background, reading straight through from beginning to end can easily lose the thread; selective reading driven by questions will yield clearer gains.

Who it's for

A good fit for

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Reading tips

  1. Read a reliable introduction to Burke's thought first, then move on to selections in this volume.
  2. Read selectively by theme rather than in order, taking notes on one political issue at a time.
  3. Consult a chronology of eighteenth-century British history while reading to understand the real-world targets of the arguments.
  4. When encountering long sentences, first map the layers of argument, then review how the rhetoric serves the point.

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
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  5. 5
  6. 6
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  11. 11
  12. 12
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  51. 51
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  53. 53
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  55. 55
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  57. 57
  58. 58
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  60. 60
  61. 61
  62. 62
  63. 63
  64. 64
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  70. 70
  71. 71
  72. 72
  73. 73
  74. 74
  75. 75
  76. 76
  77. 77
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FAQ

Can I read this volume without a background in political science? You can try, but it is advisable to first acquire some background on Burke's life and eighteenth-century British politics. This volume is a collected works, not an introduction; the pieces address specific controversies, and without background it is easy to see only the rhetoric and miss the arguments. Reading introductory material first and then selecting themes of interest will go more smoothly.
Do I need to start from Volume 1 and read the twelfth volume in order? No. Volumes of a collected works are usually arranged by genre or theme, and Volume 12 can be used as an independent selection. If your aim is to understand one aspect of Burke's thought, look up the themes of the pieces and read selectively; if you are doing systematic research, then combine other volumes and secondary studies to build the overall picture.
Is a public-domain eBook edition reliable? Public-domain eBooks are easy to obtain free of charge and to search, but proofreading, annotation, and typesetting quality vary by source. If you notice anomalous wording while reading, check it against other reliable editions; for scholarly citation, note the edition used and, where possible, verify against authoritative publications.

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.