Montesquieu deeply influenced Burke, particularly regarding the parliamentarian’s understanding of the British constitution and application of history. While sharing common views of l’esprit generale (roughly, sociological characteristics which interact with a country’s laws), the legislator (a representative not a delegate), and natural law (a superstructure for l’esprit), Burke’s outstanding debt consists of applying the Frenchman’s methods in a partisan way. From Montesquieu, Burke learned to derive a people’s nature from geographic, sociological, and historical events and used it to craft Rockingham ‘propaganda’ in political disputes over the American rebellion, Indian governance and the Hastings trial, and George III’s role in politics. Burke’s rationalizations do not rise to the level of political thought. But the era’s constitutional struggles particularly trouble this interpretation. Montesquieu’s identifying British separation of powers proved popular for articulating the outcome of 17th-century politics. Burke, an early enthusiast, opposed George’s capacity to influence Parliament and contended (in 1782) the crown’s power should be limited to appearance. Courtney observes the monarch conformed with the letter of the law, but elsewhere he says Burke bridged from Montesquieu to Bagehot’s 19th-century understanding. Further, he allows Reflections on the Revolution in France indeed rose to the level of political thought: Burke skillfully enunciated commonly held views or showed the way back to classical views. (In this, Courtney anachronistically calls Burke conservative.) The author holds to Namier’s view of individual behavior being explicable by classifiable political types, and the broad sweep of events corresponding to this structure, so to concede Burke’s originality is to undermine his presuppositions. Courtney also seems unhappy Burke moved on from considering history a repository of ‘scientific laws’ to a storehouse of the wisdom of precedent, and that he articulated principles for making these accessible.
United Kingdom
10. O’Connor, Michael Collins and the Troubles (20 Jun 2021)
Narrates Irish politics and warfare from 1910-25, the period prior to Home Rule’s passage through the Civil War’s denouement. During the 1890s, the revived Gaelic language, poetry, and theater catalyzed national (popular) energy. The following decade, revolutionary architect Arthur Griffith drew parallels with Hungary’s Francis Deak, who had won autonomy within the Habsburg Empire, while the Irish Republican Brotherhood elevated such intellectuals as W.B. Yeats. The arming of the Ulster Volunteers set a precedent for nationalists; the Curragh Mutiny indicated the British would contravene its own rule of law. Westminster’s passing Home Rule, hitherto blocked by pre-reform House of Lords, looked to vindicate John Redmon’s strategy; however, his volunteering Irish men for World War I surrendered the leverage for implementation and so a check on events to come, O’Connor concludes. The Easter Rebellion not only fired Irish imagination, as evidenced by poems, but future imperial revolts, he claims. From 1917, the Dail operated parallel government including courts administered by Sinn Fein in 23 of 32 counties, importantly providing an alternative to ‘garrison’ rule. 1918’s conscription then united disparate nationalists and the Catholic Church, whose declaration that resistance was justified was readily extended to the Troubles. Sinn Fein field training focused on guerilla operations. Michael Collins, more of an icon than the book’s proper subject, crucially deprived the British of sociopolitical intelligence, putting out their eyes’ through bold counterintelligence. The British response, the ‘Black and Tans’ and ‘Auxiliaries’, also resorted to irregular operations plus terrorism. Targeting village creameries indicated Irish progress toward a new political economy, which ran through Ascendancy landlords, and helps explain popular willingness to resist atrocities: ‘men of noble spirit and unfaltering courage were dying but their race does not perish’. The author focused on Dublin and the West, the civil war in Ulster and the broader north is largely untreated. De Valera’s great contribution the US campaign for money and recognition – Americans (save Wilson) are portrayed as broadly sympathetic – but his opposition to the treaty and decision to instigate civil war bears further scrutiny.
The Irish war of independence, skipping past contemporary Wilsonian self-determination, is frequently portrayed as a model for postwar struggles, for decolonization. (Indeed, the Volunteers are described as the first fascists, which does not bear scrutiny.) The mor interesting threat is how, 75 years after the Famine, the Irish established parallel socioeconomic institutions strong enough to topple the hegemon.