Edmund Burke observed that the French Revolution was the “most astonishing” event “that has hitherto happened in the world.”Footnote ¹ The second most astonishing event—in a good sense—may be that he is the subject of a recent book, excluding end matter, numbering under 200 pages. In light of a number of hefty volumes published on Burke in the past 30 years (this reviewer stands guilty), Ross Carroll’s Edmund Burke furnishes a taut and much-needed introduction to the British philosopher-statesman that should be a starting point for any student in their initiation into Burke studies. Inspired by Carroll’s persuasive defense of political theory as an interdisciplinary subdiscipline, the book judiciously examines the political ideas of Burke stretching from his days as an undergraduate at Trinity College Dublin to his final years defending his royal pension and exposing the flatulence of the Duke of Bedford. Although Carroll periodically references Burke’s private life, the author’s focus is on his political, religious, social, aesthetic, and economic thought. The novice Burke student should know that some background knowledge on the politics of eighteenth-century England and the British Empire would be helpful when reading the text.

Consisting of an introduction, six tight chapters, and an epilogue, Carroll’s study employs unpretentious prose to paint a portrait of Burke’s political ethics rooted in a vivid awareness of man’s urge to dominate his fellow man, the dangers of man’s exploded confidence in his own abilities, and the possibility that politics can serve as a forum for virtuous conduct. Carroll conveys general sympathy toward Burke’s positions but also offers thoughtful criticisms of his approach when necessary, demonstrating an air of scholarly detachment.

The core strength of the book is the didactic, patient, and systematic manner in which it diagnoses guiding principles of Burke’s political thought, an impressive achievement given the book’s disciplined scope. Carroll provides succinct summaries of Burke’s engagement with the more well-known controversies of his political life, including his attack on the French Revolution, criticism of the East India Company, and rebuke of the court intrigue of King George III. Carroll also displays a careful touch in his perceptive treatment of Burke’s notions of reform, representation, slavery, the little platoon, and the relation between conquest and law, the latter representing one of the best discussions of Burke’s ideas in the entire book. The author also seasons his analysis with helpful numerical frameworks: “Burke’s student reform agenda is … significant, for three reasons” (p. 62); Burke’s theory of freedom contained “three key elements” (p. 89); Burke’s rebuke of democracy “centered around three core claims about the threat democracy posed to freedom” (p. 97). These frameworks give lucidity and coherence to the parliamentarian’s complex ideas.

Carroll never forgets that, while Burke possessed rare intellectual agility, he was as much a political practitioner as a philosopher whose powers of rhetoric and emotion-dripped speeches (some might call them outbursts) revolted against the stuffy aristocratic and gentlemanly disposition he was accused of defending. As the author writes, not inaccurately, Burke “made an entire career out of arguing with people” (p. 1). Later Carroll rightly highlights Burke’s recognition that emotion, anger, and revenge, if responsibly channeled, were not antithetical to the pursuit of justice. There was a dignity to the heated tribunals of politics, guided by moral aims, that armchair speculation and feigned postures of neutrality could not match.

Carroll admits he is selective in his chosen themes for Edmund Burke because, among various reasons he outlines, some have been sufficiently addressed in other Burke volumes. This judgment is certainly understandable, though it does detract slightly from the book’s pedagogical purpose as an introduction to Burke, since the latter themes, even if covered elsewhere, are still indispensable for the neophyte to grasping the interdependent principles of his thought. Carroll, for example, wisely devotes a few paragraphs to Burke’s conception of the importance of political continuity, but this section demanded elaboration on his distinctions between voluntary and involuntary contracts and on how the latter in his view constituted the resilient moral bonds responsible for preserving a people’s cultural inheritance from one generation to the next.

Several other salient themes in Burke’s thought required emphasis, if brief, to illuminate their interdependent nature. In the section on his Philosophical Enquiry, there is no mention of Burke’s attempt to refute classical conceptions of beauty as rational proportion—an essential tenet of his aesthetics. Yet this tenet has immediate implications for Carroll’s later discussion of Burke’s appreciation of social and constitutional complexity. The author’s commentary on Burke’s notion of reform is very good, shrewdly avoiding the temptation to reduce it to gradualism, but these remarks should have accentuated the vital principle guiding his reformist inclinations: simply put, the change should be proportionate to the defect.

In addition, Carroll’s otherwise strong analysis of Burke’s defense of chivalry could have been enhanced by explaining how this idea relates to the latter’s conception of the moral imagination, which furnishes artifice—rituals, titles, habits, decorum, institutions—in society to dignify man and protect him from his baser impulses. Carroll discusses these ideas in separate sections elsewhere, but elucidation of Burke’s notion of the moral imagination in his specific diagnosis of the French Revolution would have allowed the reader to grasp more fully his idea of chivalry and his aesthetic critique of the event.

One theme tangential to the book’s purpose, yet one that remains compelling throughout the text, is Carroll’s attempt to connect Burke to Rousseau and Locke, two philosophers considered to be his nemeses. While Carroll mentions a few areas of tension, this effort to draw affinities between them leaves the (ostensibly novice) student of Burke with the impression that they held few fundamental philosophical and moral disagreements. Given the limited scope of the book, one is not expecting winding excursuses on the Burke–Locke and Burke–Rousseau relationships. But if the author is going to put them in intermittent conversation with one another, he should also pinpoint additional examples of their elemental disagreements, such as Burke’s uncompromising attack on Rousseau’s notion of vanity and his blunt disavowal of Rousseau’s and Locke’s rationalist conceptions of the social contract. Similarly, Carroll goes too far in writing that Burke (and other Whigs) “often looked” to Locke for “inspiration” (p. 90). Locke fell out of favor throughout the eighteenth century, Burke rarely if ever praised Locke’s political ideas, and he wrote the Reflections, in part, to refute Richard Price’s Lockean interpretation of the Glorious Revolution.

Filling in such details—which could be managed efficiently and still keep the book under 200 pages—would sharpen the reader’s understanding of the harmonizing themes in Burke’s political thought. In the end, however, Carroll’s astute study establishes a sturdy foothold for further examination of the philosopher-statesman and is a timely contribution to Burke literature. For even if this achievement is not astonishing, that the author did so in under 200 pages is at least exemplary.