The most important issues of Edmund Burke’s Parliamentary career are encapsulated by opposition to authoritarian government, formed of his Irish heritage. The political contexts of Ireland, America, India, and France vary significantly, but Burke always is on the side of ordered liberty. The Irish question is however the most problematic because Burke had to abjure his roots and adopt an English Protestant (Anglican) persona in order to be part of the political conversation. Yet the French Revolution drew his most vehement response because he rightly intuited its attempt to expel all tradition and custom (especially religion). Burke believed it is not the institutions (forms of government) which are the source of political malfunction, but human fallibility itself (p. 603). O’Brien resolutely challenges the Namierite school, which dismissed Burke’s role because he rarely held high office, by demonstrating Burke’s impact on the major events of his era. The list of seminal events also includes the Whig struggle with George III and Pitt the Younger’s ascension to Prime Ministership. The book is considered ‘unreliable’ by some historians as O’Brien is willing to conjecture and draw conclusions where documentary evidence is silent. Ultimately his project is to reclaim Burke for the liberal tradition. An excellent appendix on the connection between the French and Russian revolutions. Dense but worthy.