The Great Debate by {author}: summary and why it matters

What it argues

Levin goes back to the 1790s, when Edmund Burke's Reflections drew a reply from Thomas Paine's Rights of Man. He argues that this exchange set out the two attitudes that still define right and left: one respects the inheritance of institutions and moves by gradual reform, the other trusts reason to remake them to match principle.

He presents both fairly. Paine's strength is his faith in equality and in the power of ordinary people to govern themselves; Burke's is his awareness of how fragile a working order is and how much of it lies in unspoken habit. Levin shows how the same arguments have gone on since, in debates over welfare, regulation and rights, and he reads the American founding as one that borrowed from both men.

Why it matters

It is an accessible introduction to the founding disagreement of modern politics and a model of how to state an opponent's case. Levin writes as a conservative but with respect for Paine, which makes the book useful for readers across the spectrum.

About the author

Yuval Levin (born 1977) is an American political analyst who founded the journal National Affairs and directs social, cultural and constitutional studies at the American Enterprise Institute. He worked in the George W. Bush White House as a staffer on bioethics policy. The Great Debate was his first book, followed by The Fractured Republic.

Who should read it

Anyone who wants a short, lively route to Burke and Paine before tackling the originals.