Edmund Burke and India: Political Morality and Empire (Pitt Series in Policy and Institutional Studies)

By Frederick G. Whelan

Whelan's study of Edmund Burke's political thought is the first thorough treatment of his views on India, even though the affairs of the British Indian empire occupied more of Burke's attention--and occupy more space among his writings and speeches--than any of the other causes to which he devoted himself during his long public career.
Great Britain's Indian empire had been firmly established shortly before Burke's entry into parliamentary politics. Having become convinced that the imperial regime was deeply tainted by tyranny and corruption, Burke led a campaign to reform its administration and bring the offenders to account, most notably in his lengthy impeachment prosecution of Warren Hastings, the former governor of Bengal. As in the case of the American colonies, Burke was prepared to support a British empire only if it could be ruled justly and for the welfare of all its subjects.
Relating Burke's views on India to ideas expressed in his other writings, Whelan offers a comprehensive assessment of Burke's political theory as a whole. Burke appears here as one of the few classic political thinkers in the Western canon to have made a serious and sustained effort to understand a non-European society and culture.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0822939274
• ISBN13: 9780822939276
• Release Date: December 1996
• Publisher: University of Pittsburgh Press
• Length: 384 Pages
• Weight: 1.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 9.8" x 1.5" x 6.5"