Conquests, International Exchanges, and Civilization:

The Early Writings of Burke and the Historiography of Early Modern Britain

Abstract

Abstract: It is widely recognized that Edmund Burke, in his Reflections on the Revolution in France, claimed that the ancient constitution of England, chivalry, and the Christian religion had con-tributed much to the formation of the civilized states of Britain and Europe at large. This arti-cle shows that a distinct perspective of the history of civilization existed in the early writings of Burke, An Essay towards an Abridgment of the English History and Fragment: An Essay towards an History of the Laws of England, and also places the ideas of Burke in these works in the context of the early modern history of English historiography. The early writings of Burke clearly assert that throughout history, a civilization could be and had actually been shaped in England through numerous international exchanges between England and other countries. In doing so, his idea seems to have included a perception of empire, which was fur-ther advanced in his later political works. Burkeʼs ideas on conquest and international ex-changes are related to the views on English history developed by the seventeenth-century scholars Spelman and Brady in their works on feudal law; however, Burke was different from these scholars in considering conquest as a powerful driving force behind the formation of the English civilization. Although other historians of the early modern period had held simi-lar ideas about conquest, Burke distinguished himself from them by putting forward a gener-alized model of the civilizing process closely linked to various types of international ex-changes. JEL classification numbers: B 31, N 01.