Reflections on the Revolution in France and The Rights of Man

Garden City: Anchor Books Anchor Press/Doubleday, 1973. Light Creasing on Front, Rear Covers; Front Cover Moderately Chipped; Rear Cover, Spine Lightly Chipped; Light Sticker Pull to Front Cover. SYNOPSIS: Because the French Revolution was, in Burke's phrase, "the most astonishing event . . . in human history," a full seventeen months elapsed after the first meeting of the National Assembly before any notable public figure dared to interpret the events in France to an awe-struck world. In November 1790, Burke published his Reflections on the Revolution in France, a masterpiece of political analysis and prediction which ran through ten editions in the first year. Many attempts were made to refute Burke's attack on the Revolution, of which none was more famous than Thomas Paine's Rights of Man. The issue joined between these great antagonists was the value of our civilized heritage. Burke believed that each generation was beholden for its liberties, its learning, and other great gifts to the cumulative achievement of all past generations. Paine wished to free man from the dead hand of corrupt custom and hereditary privilege and to restore him to full possession of his original natural rights. At the beginning of our era of glittering and terrible revolutions, Burke taught fear of human pride and Paine, hope in human charity, both with a clear and passionate conviction that can still instruct and move us. Edmund Burke (1729-97) was the second son of an Irish attorney. From 1743 to 1748 he attended Trinity College, Dublin, and in 1756 he first came to public notice with the publication of A Vindication of Natural Society and the Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of Our Ideas on the Sublime and Beautiful. He entered Parliament in 1765 and represented the great seaport of Bristol from 1774 to 1780. While he never held any important ministerial post, Burke gained an extraordinary influence in England by means of his published writings, reaching the climax of his fame with the publication, in 1790, of Reflections on the Revolution in France. This great British statesman and publicist, who commanded the admiration and friendship of Samuel Johnson, devoted his life to five "great, just, and honorable causes": the preservation of the English Constitution, the emancipation of Ireland, the emancipation of the American Colonies, the protection of the people of India from the misgovernment of the East India Company, and opposition to the ravages of the French Revolution. Thomas Paine (1737-1809) was born in England, a Quaker and the son of a poor corsetmaker. At thirteen he was apprenticed to his father's trade. After a meeting with Benjamin Franklin in London, he sailed for Philadelphia in 1774. In the new land he became a journalist and an ardent patriot. His pamphlet, Common Sense, urging the immediate declaration of independence, appeared in January 1776 and did a great deal to inspire the American Revolution. He traveled with the Revolutionary Army and wrote the Crisis pamphlets. In 1787 he returned to England, only to leave for France two years later, a self-appointed missionary of revolution. His famous answer to Edmund Burke's condemnation of the French Revolution, The Rights of Man, resulted in his trial for treason and banishment. When the sentence was delivered he was in France, where he was subsequently imprisoned under the Terror. In prison he began writing The Age of Reason. He returned to America in 1802, but found himself ostracized as a radical freethinker and lived in poverty until his death.. Mass Market Paperback. Good. 12mo - over 6¾" - 7¾" tall.