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Edmund Burke is identified today as a conservative thinker--indeed, one of the greatest conservative thinkers--by his admirers. But his conservatism was more complicated and provocative than even conservatives appreciate. His Reflections on the Revolution in France, a searing indictment of the Revolution, brilliantly forecast the Reign of Terror that was to emerge three years later. Yet, he was also a passionate defender of the American Revolution and of the republic it produced. Both were inspired by a political wisdom that defies party labels and that is as timely today as it was more than two centuries ago.

Gertrude Himmelfarb is professor emeritus of history at the Graduate School of the City University of New York and a member of AEI’s Council of Academic Advisers. Her most recent book is The Moral Imagination: From Edmund Burke to Lionel Trilling (Ivan R. Dee, 2006).