The Great Debate, Yuval Levin
The Great Debate, Yuval Levin
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The Great Debate
Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine, and the Birth of Right and Left

Author: Yuval Levin

Narrator: Mike Chamberlain

Unabridged: 10 hr 30 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Publisher: AudioGO

Published: 12/03/2013

Synopsis

For more than two centuries, our political life has been divided between a party of progress and a party of conservation. In The Great Debate, Yuval Levin explores the origins of the Left-Right divide by examining the views of the men who best represented each side of that debate at its outset: Edmund Burke and Thomas Paine. In a groundbreaking exploration of the roots of our political order, Levin shows that American partisanship originated in the debates over the French Revolution, fueled by the fiery rhetoric of these ideological titans. Levin masterfully shows how Burkes and Paines differing views, a reforming conservatism and a restoring progressivism, continue to shape our current political discourseon issues ranging from abortion to welfare, education, economics, and beyond. Essential reading for anyone seeking to understand Washingtons often acrimonious rifts, The Great Debate offers a profound examination of what conservatism, liberalism, and the debate between them truly amount to.

About Yuval Levin

Yuval Levin is director of social, cultural, and constitutional studies at the American Enterprise Institute and the editor of National Affairs. A former member of the White House domestic policy staff under George W. Bush, he has written for the New York Times, Washington Post, and Wall Street Journal, among many other publications. His previous books include The Fractured Republic and The Great Debate. He lives in Maryland.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Riku on April 08, 2015

The Perfect Omelet A good investigation of the origins of the great liberal political debate. Levin takes us to the original arguments and shows us how at a distance the great but nebulous political divides of our day take a much more concrete shape. Of course the author is slightly right-leaning and......more

Goodreads review by Bakunin on July 11, 2019

Great book which really helped clarify the difference between conservatism and certain strains of the enlightenment. Burkes contention is basically that we do not create society but we are born into it. We should therefore not think that we are smart enough to remake society according to abstract pr......more

Goodreads review by Drtaxsacto on December 21, 2013

I first read Thomas Paine and Edmund Burke almost 50 years ago. I will confess that I am more a Burkean than a Paineista. Levin does a careful analysis of the work of these two 18th century writers in a compare and contrast mode that I found quite interesting. Burke grew up as an Irishman - when we v......more

Goodreads review by Otto on July 26, 2019

Paine and Burke were powerful thinkers and rhetoricians who inserted their views surgically into the central debates of modern politics, from the American crisis to the French revolution. This book is a lean, precise, and analytical account of the central passions and reasons of their philosophies.......more

Goodreads review by Joseph on December 12, 2020

This book's thesis is highly patchy and under-developed, but if you want to learn about Paine and Burke, it is very good. Levin is a conservative who clearly favors Burke, but he's fair to both and points out strengths and weaknesses on both sides. He also doesn't set them up as totally opposed, giv......more

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