The Edmund Burke Society of America

Latest News

• A report from our inaugural May 2002 conference, “Fresh Perspectives on Burke Studies in Higher Education,” is now posted online.

Forthcoming Books

Information on forthcoming books about Edmund Burke can be found at the following websites:

• Elizabeth Lambert’s study of Edmund Burke of Beaconsfield is due to appear this May. The book will focus upon the domestic and private friendships of Edmund Burke from 1750, when he first traveled to England, until 1812, the year of the death of his wife, Jane. “In many and complex ways,” the advertisement reads, “Beaconsfield is an essential key to the Edmund Burke who defined himself as the embodiment of Cicero’s ‘new man’ and whose marital relationship with Jane Nugent Burke sustained, nurtured, and drove him throughout his political career. Further details, and order information, can be found at the publisher. See also the Amazon listing.
• Luke Gibbons’s new book, Edmund Burke and Ireland: Aesthetics, Politics and the Colonial Sublime, is due for publication by Cambridge University Press later in the year. At present, the most accessible information on the volume is available at Amazon.com.
• Recently published by the University of Chicago Press is A Moral Enterprise: Politics, Reason, and the Human Good, a collection of essays marking the distinguished academic career of Fr. Francis Canavan, political theorist and Burke scholar. Two essays in the collection will be of particular interest to our readers. Our president, Joseph Pappin III, has contributed an essay entitled “Edmund Burke on Tradition and Human Progress: Ordered Liberty and the Politics of Change,” and F. P. Lock has written on “Burke and Human Rights.” For further details, and to order a copy, visit www.isibooks.org.

Communications with Other Burke Societies

A little over a year ago, the Edmund Burke Society’s newsletter carried a reference to the recently established Edmund Burke Foundation in the Netherlands. Here is a more detailed description of the Foundation’s mission, written by Bart Jan Spruyt, one of the Foundation’s directors:

The spirit of Edmund Burke is still alive in the Netherlands. On November 1, 2002, the Dutch Edmund Burke Foundation became the first independently funded, public policy think tank in The Netherlands devoted to conservative ideas. The Burke Foundation was formed at the end of 2000 as a non-partisan public policy platform with two main aims: first, to broaden knowledge of Edmund Burke’s works; second, to promote an understanding of conservative philosophy, to publish books and articles about Burke and conservatism, to develop policy proposals, to bring together those interested in conservatism in The Netherlands, and to challenge established assumptions underlying public opinion in our notoriously “progressive” country. To these ends, the Foundation is keen to foster stronger links with other institutes worldwide that are committed to conservatism and the ideal of a free and virtuous society.

Last year, Dr. Bart Jan Spruyt edited and translated into Dutch an anthology of Burke’s writings, Edmund Burke: Het wezen van het conservatisme. Een bloemlezing uit ‘Reflections on the Revolution in France.’ The volume includes an introduction tracing Burke’s reception and influence in The Netherlands.

For further information, visit the Foundation’s website (Dutch) or contact the Edmund Burke Foundation in the Netherlands at: Edmund Burke Foundation, P.O. Box 10498, 2501 HL The Hague, The Netherlands. E-mail: spruyt@burkestichting.nl.