Burke, Edmund

British Whig politician and political theorist, born in Dublin, Ireland. During a parliamentary career spanning more than 30 years, he was famous for opposing the government's attempts to coerce the American colonists, for example in Thoughts on the Present Discontents (1770), and for supporting the emancipation of Ireland. However, he was a vehement opponent of the French Revolution, which he denounced in Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790), and attacked the suggestion of peace with France in Letters on a Regicide Peace (1795–97).

Burke was also the author of A Philosophical Inquiry into the Origin of our Ideas on the Sublime and Beautiful (1756), on aesthetics. He was a leading figure in the impeachment of the British colonial administrator Warren Hastings. Burke's basic political credo – that liberty is only possible within the strict framework of law and order – ensured that he was subsequently revered by British Conservatives as one of their main inspirational figures.