A review by blueyorkie
Reflexões sobre a Revolução em França, by Edmund Burke, Ivone Moreira

5.0

Scandalously unknown in France, this analysis of the Revolution written around 1791, is exceptional. Of course, this is not a history book; it told from a very subjective point of view that does not hesitate to dramatize things. But the interest lies in the profound understanding of the philosophy of the revolutionary process, led by ambitious and dogmatic theorists, who prefer to destroy everything rather than to compromise. In short, they do not know the art of politics, and this can only bring chaos and destruction. He thus predicts Terror and massacres, and even the seizure of power by an army chief! It also exposes the conservative truths, which teach us that society is an ancient and complicated heritage that we cannot shape as we please and that we must reform very carefully on pain of collapse. Finally, the style, classic, perhaps a little emphatic, is dazzling, so read it in the original English speakers! Just for this formula which shows that Burke prophesied the moral degradation that is modernity: "But the age of chivalry is gone; that of sophisters, economists and calculators has succeeded, and the glory of Europe extinguished forever ... "