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The Salisbury Review, Winter 2012, has just been published

You can see the contents here. More information about The Salisbury Review here.

And you can subscribe this incredible and much valuable Journal here. This could be a very good way of beginning 2013.


Edmund Burke and the Politics of Empire, by William F. Byrne

Edmund Burke was one of those rare figures who combined profound political-philosophical observation with a highly active political career. After he entered Parliament, almost all of his writings and speeches addressed some sort of pressing public policy concern, yet these works also form the major part of the basis for most interpretations of his philosophic thought. Although Burke’s policy focus provides a great deal of material for political historians and biographers, it poses challenges for political theorists, who must tease political philosophy out of works which were not explicitly written as such. But, it also offers important advantages. For one thing, one might argue that Burke’s public career helps keep his thought attuned to “realworld” issues in all their messiness and complexity, and forces him to consider information which more speculative thinkers might disregard. More significant for our immediate purpose is the fact that Burke’s writings and speeches clearly demonstrate the application of particular political-philosophical perspectives to public policy questions.

In the past few years, the subject of empire has received heightened interest from both a philosophical and public policy perspective. Questions of empire also dominated much of Burke’s career. It therefore makes sense to turn to Burke when looking for wisdom on such matters. The temptation must be avoided, however, to look to Burke for formulaic solutions to contemporary questions, or to characterize his views with a broad brush. Burke was neither a champion nor an opponent of empire in the general sense (or of the British Empire, in a more specific sense). His concern was with the specifics of how particular British possessions were administered. But, it is Burke’s attention to detail which helps to make his approaches to policy questions philosophically rich, rather than ideological.

Read the complete article in The Imaginative Conservative


Eliot Through His Letters, by Martin Lockerd.

Since the first volume of Eliot’s letters (1898–1922) appeared in 1988, scholars and enthusiasts waited impatiently for the Eliot estate to release a second volume. Though a British edition appeared in 2009, American readers were forced to wait still longer for the U.S. edition, which finally appeared in August of 2011. One benefit of the delayed arrival of the U.S. edition is that the letters themselves have already been reviewed by several prominent publications. Of course, this is a benefit chiefly in so far as it provides the opportunity for a much-needed corrective.

Anthony Julius’s piece for The Telegraph demonstrates the characteristic myopia of the reviews that sprang up in 2009. He finds little to like about the “distasteful” task of reading Eliot’s letters: “They tell us about the author, not about his writing. They are not an aid to understanding, certainly.” Though nearly every major critical work concerning Eliot’s verse makes useful reference to his correspondences, Julius finds them merely tedious. While this puts him in the company of those reviewers who regularly employ adjectives such as “painful” and “boring” when describing the reading process, it does him little credit. What is truly painful is the fact that many reviews of the letters fail to substantially address any but those letters directly quoted in the editors’ preface. The preface does give a well-constructed and succinct overview of the book’s contents, but many early reviewers cling to the overview and neglect the collection itself.

Julius does make one foray outside of the preface in order to bash Eliot as an anti-Semite, but he is so intent on grinding this worn-down axe that he overlooks the moments of true insight that leap up like a trout in the onrushing stream of the poet’s correspondence. The collection is admittedly awash with business mail that can be overwhelming. It is also, however, filled with truly poignant, interesting, and even funny moments that make the letters well worth reading. The exchange between Eliot and the writer/critic John Middleton Murry stands out as the most moving and emotional. Following the lead of the preface, many reviewers call attention to Eliot’s deeply confessional letters to Murry, which are filled with dark lines such as: “I have deliberately killed my senses—I have deliberately died—in order to go on with the outward form of living.” Eliot’s desperation grows as his wife’s mental and physical health languishes and deteriorates, and his fall into depression and despair evokes true pathos with seemingly little hope of catharsis.

Complete article in The University Bookman


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