Edmund Burke: A Genius Reconsidered by Russell Kirk

Throughout his political and literary career, Burke opposed the “arbitrary exercise of power” and “denial of justice,” warning against the dangers of absolute power. He championed “the cause of the unfortunate” and “never had feared to attack the powerful, or to defend the weak, or to oppose to established interests the high power of his imagination.” Burke, as a “philosopher in action[,]…maintained to his last day the cause of justice in society.” In Edmund Burke: A Genius Reconsidered, Kirk traces these themes throughout Burke’s actions and writings regarding the American Revolution, Economic Reform, the prosecution of Warren Hastings, and French Revolution.