ABSTRACT
When the French Revolution began in 1789, many in England greeted it with enthusiasm. But Edmund Burke (1729/30–1797), an Irishman who moved to England and served for many years in Parliament, saw the revolution as a threat to order and liberty. In his Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790), Burke not only criticized the revolutionaries but virtually predicted that the revolution would end in chaos. This and his other speeches and writings—such as the Appeal From the New to the Old Whigs (1791), from which the second selection is drawn—have won for Burke the title of father of conservatism.
