The Great Debate

Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine, and the Birth of Right and Left

By: Yuval Levin

Narrated by: Mike Chamberlain

An acclaimed portrait of Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine, and the origins of modern conservatism and liberalism

In The Great Debate, Yuval Levin explores the roots of the left/right political divide in America by examining the views of the men who best represented each side at its origin: Edmund Burke and Thomas Paine. Striving to forge a new political path in the tumultuous age of the American and French revolutions, these two ideological titans sparred over moral and philosophical questions about the nature of political life and the best approach to social change: radical and swift, or gradual and incremental. The division they articulated continues to shape our political life today.

Essential reading for anyone seeking to understand the basis of our political order and Washington's acrimonious rifts today, The Great Debate offers a profound examination of what conservatism, progressivism, and the debate between them truly amount to.

Critic reviews

"Yuval Levin, whose sharp thinking was honed at the University of Chicago s Committee on Social Thought...is one of conservatism s most sophisticated and measured explicators."—George F. Will, Washington Post

"[The Great Debate's] architecture is clever and intellectually persuasive.... A thoughtful introduction to this famous paradigmatic opposition."—Washington Post

"In a Burkean manner, Mr. Levin enriches through wisdom rather than prescription. He gives us something more than a manual of past lessons--namely, the historical framework to achieve greater understanding."—Wall Street Journal

"In this lively and probing book, Levin, one of the most influential conservative writers in the United States, looks at the ideas of Edmund Burke and Thomas Paine, towering figures in the late-eighteenth-century transatlantic Enlightenment...The Great Debate won't settle any of the political disputes roiling U.S. politics today, but those who read it carefully will find it easier to understand their opponents--and perhaps even to find some common ground."—Foreign Affairs

"Levin enters into another great debate that riles academia: between historians insisting upon the uniqueness and specificity of events, which defy abstractions and generalizations, and philosophers impatient with the ephemera and contingency of events, which do not rise to the level of truth and certainty. Here too he rises to the occasion, satisfying the scruples of historians and philosophers alike. From a debate raged about an event centuries ago, he deduces truths that illuminate some of our most vexing political and social problems today."—Gertrude Himmelfarb, Weekly Standard

"The Great Debate is a masterful and loving piece of work, the kind of solo performance that commands mute attention and makes even a crinkled cough-drop wrapper sound like an errant clang of the gong. It does more than announce Levin's arrival; it is, in itself, a refutation--this time with an inerrant clang--of the factitious notion that intellectual conservatism is a bygone thing."—Commentary

"[A] wonderful book."—Los Angeles Times

"The definitive intellectual history of an argument so powerful that it echoes to the present day."—National Review Online

Essential Reading

This book was immensely readable given the topic.To understand how we got to the political reality of the 21st century, we need to look back on the thinking that set the stage. Glad I read it.

absolutely worth your time

Yuval Levin's phD dissertation made readable for the rest of us. helps give clarity in explaining why left and right often talk past each other, because their competing world views are founded in entirely different assumptions of the good, which stretches back 250 years

The Roots of our (Particularly USA) Progressive & Conservative Liberalism

Really enjoyed the book and had to listen to the conclusion twice to appreciate Levin’s read on our currently strained politics. I had heard of Paine and Burke, but (perhaps still) did not know much about them or their views and how their legacy shaped Western political evolution. Having recently listened to some great podcasts on the French Revolution (‘Rest is History’) and the founding of the USA (‘Empire’)—both tragic instances of the violence (hallelujah not only that) that is our common human legacy amidst the interadvental permixtum—and finding myself to a large extent politically homeless in recent years—it was good to hear Levin’s outstanding—and very fair— treatment of these two giants. While I am now reminded of the importance of remaining conservative and praying for wisdom to navigate “gradually,” I am also appreciative that Paine—notwithstanding his radical and utterly untethered views—contributed something good to our legacy (concern for the poor might be it). I am however increasingly cautious about attaching “isms” to our political “identities”. Overall great book. Tolle lege.

Intellectual Battle of Ideas

Levin has an exceptional knowledge of Paine and Burke and presents their arguments fairly and objectively. Today, we hear faint echoes of these arguments in the battles between conservatives and libertarians. If you want to hear these arguments at the highest intellectual level, you can hear it here.

Very informative for the historically uninformed.

Sometimes it reads like a PhD dissertation, but i made it through. cf Roger Scruton.