The intellectual wellspring of modern political conservatism, Edmund
Burke is also considered a significant figure in aesthetic theory and
cultural studies. As a member of the House of Commons during the late
eighteenth century, Burke shook Parliament with his powerful defense of
the American Revolution and the rights of persecuted Catholics in
England and Ireland; his indictment of the English rape of the Indian
subcontinent; and, most famously, his denouncement of English Jacobin
sympathizers during the French Revolution. The Portable Edmund Burke
is the fullest one- volume survey of Burke's thought, with sections
devoted to his writings on history and culture, politics and society,
the American Revolution, Ireland, colonialism and India, and the French
Revolution. This volume also includes excerpts from his letters and an
informative Introduction surveying Burke's life, ideas, and his
reception and influence in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.