Listen free for 30 days

Listen with offer

Preview
  • The Great Debate

  • Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine, and the Birth of Right and Left
  • By: Yuval Levin
  • Narrated by: Mike Chamberlain
  • Length: 10 hrs and 31 mins
  • 4.0 out of 5 stars (4 ratings)

£0.00 for first 30 days

Pick 1 audiobook a month from our unmatched collection - including bestsellers and new releases.
Listen all you want to thousands of included audiobooks, Originals, celeb exclusives, and podcasts.
Access exclusive sales and deals.
£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

The Great Debate

By: Yuval Levin
Narrated by: Mike Chamberlain
Try for £0.00

£7.99/month after 30 days. Renews automatically. See here for eligibility.

Buy Now for £12.99

Buy Now for £12.99

Pay using card ending in
By completing your purchase, you agree to Audible's Conditions of Use and authorise Audible to charge your designated card or any other card on file. Please see our Privacy Notice, Cookies Notice and Interest-based Ads Notice.

Summary

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.

An essential book 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.

©2013 Yuval Levin (P)2021 Basic Books
activate_Holiday_promo_in_buybox_DT_T2

Listeners also enjoyed...

Rediscovering Americanism cover art
The Creation of the American Republic, 1776-1787 cover art
The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution cover art
Politics cover art
Metternich cover art
Conservatism cover art
Ordinary Men cover art
A Political Philosophy cover art
Spirits of the Cold War cover art
The Burgundians cover art
Analysis: A Macat Analysis of John Locke's Two Treatises of Government cover art
Analysis: A Macat Analysis of Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France cover art
A Philosophical Enquiry into the Sublime and Beautiful cover art
Russell Kirk's Concise Guide to Conservatism cover art
Last Call for Liberty cover art
The Case Against the Sexual Revolution cover art

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 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

What listeners say about The Great Debate

Average customer ratings
Overall
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    3
  • 4 Stars
    0
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    1
Performance
  • 4 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    1
  • 4 Stars
    1
  • 3 Stars
    1
  • 2 Stars
    0
  • 1 Stars
    0
Story
  • 3.5 out of 5 stars
  • 5 Stars
    1
  • 4 Stars
    1
  • 3 Stars
    0
  • 2 Stars
    1
  • 1 Stars
    0

Reviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.