Description: The legacy of the French Revolution critiqued by the most important thinkers of the day.
Gateway to the French Revolution features voices critical of the French Revolution and its aftershocks. Edmund Burke's critique of the Revolution is widely known and set into motion the development of political Conservatism. Also decrying the excesses of the Terror is Friedrich Gentz, a lesser-known Austrian diplomat who would become an architect of European peace after Napoleon's failed ambitions, and Joseph de Maistre, a Savoiard nobleman whose own reflections would form a current of counter-revolutionary reactionary that has continues to have implications in our contemporary world.Brief description: Russell Kirk (1918-1994), the father of intellectual conservatism in America, was the author of more than thirty books, including The Conservative Mind, Eliot and His Age, and The Roots of American Order. His legacy lives on in the work of the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal, based at his ancestral home in Mecosta, Michigan.