Summary
Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss the work of the eighteenth-century philosopher, politician and writer Edmund Burke.Born in Dublin, Burke began his career in London as a journalist and made his name with two works of philosophy before entering Parliament. There he quickly established a reputation as one of the most formidable orators of an age which also included Pitt the Younger.When unrest began in America in the 1760s, Burke was quick to defend the American colonists in their uprising. But it was his response to another revolution which ensured he would be remembered by posterity. In 1790 he published Reflections on the Revolution in France, a work of great literary verve which attacked the revolutionaries and predicted disaster for their project. The book prompted Thomas Paine to write his masterpiece Rights of Man, and Mary Wollstonecraft was among the others to take part in the ensuing pamphlet war. Burke's influence shaped our parliamentary democracy and attitude to Empire, and lingers today.With:Karen O'BrienProfessor of English at the University of WarwickRichard BourkeSenior Lecturer in History at Queen Mary, University of LondonJohn KeaneProfessor of Politics at the University of SydneyProducer: Thomas Morris.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Just before this BBC podcast gets underway, here's something you may not know. |
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| 0:47.0 | Hello in 1790 18 months after the Storming of the Bastille |
| 0:52.0 | a British MP published a pamphlet which |
| 0:54.0 | condemned the French Revolution and accused its supporters of bringing anarchy, violence and terror |
| 0:59.4 | to the population of France. |
| 1:01.3 | Edmund Burke's reflections on the revolution in France is an |
| 1:04.4 | impassioned intellectually rigorous and stylishly written attack which provoked |
| 1:08.6 | enormous debate. Thomas Payne was moved to write his masterpiece Rights of |
| 1:12.4 | man in response. |
| 1:14.2 | But Burke wasn't always so hostile to revolutionaries. |
| 1:16.6 | When violence broke out in Britain's North American colonies in the 1760s, Burke spoke in parliament |
| 1:21.8 | in support of the colonists in their struggle against British rule. |
| 1:25.0 | One of the finest orators of his age, Burke was also a distinguished writer and philosopher. |
| 1:30.0 | His ideas helped shape the future direction of British politics and they've deeply influenced |
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