The University Bookman
Reviewing Books that Build Culture
The Living Edmund Burke
Getting up in recent months an anthology of conservative writing, The Portable Conservative Reader, I had reason to re-read much of Burke. More than ever before, I was impressed with how relevant Burke’s thoughts—and, indeed, Burke’s actions—remain to our present...
How Dead is Edmund Burke?
Walk beside the Liffey in Dublin, a trifle west of the dome of the Four Courts, and you come to Number 12, Arran Quay. This is a brick building of three stories, which began as a gentleman’s residence, some time since became a shop, and now is a governmental office of...
Burke, Providence, and Archaism
The Political Reason of Edmund Burke. By Francis Canavan, S. J. Duke University Press. 1960. $5.00. Edmund Burke and Ireland. By Thomas H. D. Mahoney. Harvard University Press. 1960. $7.50. The Correspondence of Edmund Burke. Edited by Lucy S. Sutherland. Volume II...
Burke Dispassionately Considered
Carl B. Cone, Burke and the Nature of Politics: The Age of the French Revolution, Lexington (University of Kentucky Press), 1964, 527 pages, $9. The Correspondence of Edmund Burke, Vol. IV (July 1778–June 1782), ed. John A. Woods, Chicago (University of Chicago...
Burke and the Principle of Order
What Matthew Arnold called “an epoch of concentration” seems to be impending over the English-speaking world. The revolutionary impulses and the social enthusiasms which have dominated this era since their great explosion in Russia are now confronted with a...
Edmund Burke and the Constitution
Constitutions are something more than lines written upon parchment. When a written constitution endures—and most written constitutions have not been long for this world—that document has been derived successfully from long-established customs, beliefs, statutes, and...
Edmund Burke and the Future of American Politics
“We are at the beginning of great troubles.”Once upon a time it was the assumption of most of the people in the world that the fundamental constitutions of their society would endure to the end of time; or at least for a very great while; or certainly for the lifetime...
Why Edmund Burke Is Studied
To resist the idyllic imagination and the diabolical imagination, we need to know the moral imagination of Edmund Burke.Cato the Elder told his friends, “I had rather that men should ask, ‘Why is there no monument to Cato?’ than that they should ask, ‘Why is there a...
Burke and Natural Rights
Edmund Burke was at once a chief exponent of the Ciceronian doctrine of natural law and a chief opponent of the “rights of man.” In our time, which is experiencing simultaneously a revival of interest in natural-law theory and an enthusiasm for defining “human rights”...
The Book Gallery
A collection of conversations with Bookman editor Luke C. Sheahan and writers and authors of imagination and erudition.