Patriotism and Public Spirit:
Edmund Burke and the Role of the Critic in Mid-18th Century Britain is a groundbreaking study of the great political
philosopher Edmund Burke. The book
provides a scholarly advancement of existing knowledge regarding Burke and the
intellectual milieu that was so
important to his development as a thinker.
Chapter one offers an assessment of the early influences on Burke’s life
and political thought. The limits of
various “Enlightenment” metaphors often used to describe mid-18th
century European intellectual life, and potential influences upon Burke, are
critiqued with great precision and insight.
Burke’s first tome, A Vindication of Natural Society, is the
focus of the second chapter of the book, and the author provides a definitive
interpretation of the classic text that expands and refines earlier assessments
by Carl Cone and Peter Stanlis. The
influence of Burke’s native Ireland as a continuation of earlier themes is
explored in a most convincing fashion in Chapter Three. The author also dissects
the perennial excesses of the tendency to manipulate the “Irish Burke” for
political gain. In fact, Crowe argues that Burke’s formative political and
academic experiences augment his defense of religious toleration and the
refinement of the uses of public rhetoric.
Burke’s contribution to the study of aesthetics is assessed most
carefully and with great illumination, with Burke’s Philosophical Enquiry
serving as the centerpiece of the analysis in Chapter Four. The last chapter is devoted to an explication
of Burke’s “Abridgment of the English History," and the importance of
restoring order amidst the chaos of social and political life. Patriotism and Public Spirit fills a
critical lacuna in British intellectual history, Burke scholarship, and
political thought.
