The Great Debate: Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine, And The Birth Of Right And Left

Description

An acclaimed portrait of Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine, and the origins of modern conservatism and liberalism In The Great Debate, Yuval Levin explores the roots of the left/right political divide in America by examining the views of the men who best represented each side at its origin: Edmund Burke and Thomas Paine. Striving to forge a new political path in the tumultuous age of the American and French revolutions, these two ideological titans sparred over moral and philosophical questions about the nature of political life and the best approach to social change: radical and swift, or gradual and incremental. The division they articulated continues to shape our political life today. Essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the basis of our political order and Washington's acrimonious rifts today, The Great Debate offers a profound examination of what conservatism, progressivism, and the debate between them truly amount to.

About the Author

American political analyst, public intellectual, academic and journalist. His areas of specialty include health care, entitlement reform, economic and domestic policy, science and technology policy, political philosophy, and bioethics.He is the founding editor of National Affairs, director of Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies at the American Enterprise Institute, a contributing editor of National Review and a senior editor of The New Atlantis.Levin was vice president and Hertog Fellow of Ethics and Public Policy Center, executive director of the President's Council on Bioethics, Special Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy under President George W. Bush and contributing editor to The Weekly Standard. Prior to that he served as a congressional staffer at the member, committee, and leadership levels.He holds a BA from American University and a PhD from the University of Chicago.