Click on a thumbnail to go to Google Books.
|
Loading... The Great Debate: Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine, and the Birth of Right and Left (edition 2014)by Yuval Levin (Author)
Work InformationThe Great Debate: Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine, and the Birth of Right and Left by Yuval Levin
   None No current Talk conversations about this book.   ) steve02476 | Jan 3, 2023 |  In any event, the author clearly favors the more conservative philosophy of Edmund Burke. Thomas Payne apparently had a reputation as a bit of a "flame thrower. Levin tries to modulate that somewhat but it doesn't escape the pages. ( ) JBGUSA | Jan 2, 2023 | I found myself surprised and agreeing with both. I liked the chapter on justice(particularly pertinent at the moment) and Levin seems to be a rising thinker around here so I was interested in his summation(and was not disappointed). I do dispute his thesis, though. I believe the rise of the "left" and "right" has much older origins(some of which he references himself---Hobbes and Locke, for instance). But it was an interesting dive into a time and dialogue that I am always willing to learn about. Now if A Time to Build will just come off the reserve list... ( ) OutOfTheBestBooks | Sep 24, 2021 | Throughout the book I found myself identifying the ideas of Burke with the left and Paine with the right. So, while I can see the clear divide between those two men, their heritage is less clear in today’s schism. The author would have done us a service by examining how those original ideas metamorphosed into today’s camps. For all of its flaws, I’m glad I read it and would recommend it to anyone for a good summary of these influential ideas. sethwilpan | Aug 12, 2019 |  ) wagner.sarah35 | Jan 10, 2016 |
 Notwithstanding his involvement in the controversies of the moment, if one judges by his new book, The Great Debate: Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine, and the Birth of Right and Left, Levin prefers the classics to more contemporary fare. The Great Debate stands apart from many conservative books of the last decade because it is aimed almost quaintly above the current debates of the day. Barack Obama’s name appears once—in an offhand mention at the end that even the world’s most famous community organizer has claimed to be a Burkean at heart. As Levin’s subtitle suggests, the book argues that these two contemporaries were the founders of the modern Anglo-American right (Burke) and left (Paine). Now, while the politician and polemicist Burke has long been considered the father of modern conservatism, Paine is far less likely to be considered a founding father by today’s left. But he does stand out as perhaps the greatest contemporary American defender of the French Revolution, a cataclysmic event that is widely, and rightly, seen as the birthplace of, variously, the left, the “revolutionary tradition,” and/or totalitarianism itself. Meanwhile, Burke was the greatest critic of the French Revolution in the English-speaking world, a fact that shocked many Americans who revered Burke for his moral support of the American Revolution. . . . While it is obvious that Levin’s deeper affection is for Burke, he is never heavy-handed about it. Indeed, by the end of the book, it is clear that Levin is not really interested in selling the argument in his subtitle. Instead, he simply lets the men speak for themselves and trusts the reader to provide the context as needed. As Levin concedes, this is partly due to the fact that while the divergent worldviews of Burke and Paine illuminate important differences between right and left, they also clearly illuminate disagreements that run through the heart of Anglo-American life. These are two strands that together form—or at least deeply inform—the DNA of our political culture, and together they create family resemblances that transcend the conventional ideological divide.
"In The Great Debate Yuval Levin explores the origins of the familiar left/right divide in American politics by examining the views of the men who best represent each side of that debate: Edmund Burke and Thomas Paine. In a groundbreaking exploration of the origins of our political order, Levin shows that our political divide did not originate (as many historians argue) in the French Revolution, but rather in the Anglo-American debate about that revolution. Burke and Paine were both utterly fascinating figures--active in politics, versed in philosophy, and two of the best, most effective and powerful political writers and polemicists in the history of the English speaking world. Levin sets the work of these two men against the dramatic history of their era and shows how they mixed theory and practice to advance their very different notions of liberty, equality, nature, history, reason, revolution, and reform. Paine believed in radical change and saw the American and French Revolutions as catalysts for creating a new society; Burke believed in a significantly more gradual approach with each generation acting merely as part of a long chain of history. These differing approaches to revolution and reform created a division that continues to shape our current political discourse--including issues ranging from gun control and abortion to welfare and economic reform"-- No library descriptions found. |
Current DiscussionsNonePopular covers
 Google Books — Loading...GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)320.50973Social sciences Political Science Political Science Political ideologies Political ideologies Biography And History North America United StatesLC ClassificationRatingAverage: (3.67)
Is this you?Become a LibraryThing Author. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Wikipedia in English
1