The Great Debate: Edmund Burke, Thomas Paine, and the Birth of Right and Left Audiobook (Free)

For more than two generations, our political life has beendivided between a celebration of improvement and a party of conservation. In TheGreat Argument, Yuval Levin explores the roots from the Left-Right divide byexamining the views of the men who best represented each side of that debate atits outset: Edmund Burke and Thomas Paine. In a groundbreaking exploration ofthe origins of our politics order, Levin implies that American partisanshiporiginated in the debates within the French Revolution, fueled from the fieryrhetoric of these ideological titans.

Levin masterfully displays how Burke’s and Paine’sdiffering sights, a reforming conservatism and a restoring progressivism,continue steadily to shape our current political discourse-on concerns ranging fromabortion to welfare, education, economics, and beyond. Important reading foranyone seeking to understand Washington’s frequently acrimonious rifts, The GreatDebate gives a profound examination of what conservatism, liberalism, andthe controversy between them truly amount to.