Morton's review:

If Ronald Reagan is the great communicator, Burke must be the extraordinary communicator.  Someone once said that pages of Burke are like sheets of fire.

During the time he lived, in the 18th century, most political leaders were hereditary aristocrats, but Burke, like Cicero, did not descend from generations of prominent leaders.  He earned his leadership in British politics through the power of his mind.  He studied history and political principles.  He applied what he learned to real circumstances. 

A superficial look at Burke's career might tempt one to dismiss him as a failure.  Most of the causes to which he devoted himself were not successful in his lifetime.  Prior to the American Revolution, Burke wrote brilliantly on behalf of conciliation between Britain and the American colonies.  He argued for fair treatment of India by Britain.  He argued for fair treatment of the Irish by the British and for Catholic emancipation in England.  His arguments eventually prevailed, but after Burke's death.

Fortunately, he did live long enough to see the triumph of the greatest work of his life:  his effort to awaken his country to the fundamentally destructive but superficially attractive nature of the French Revolution.  His thorough and, I believe, inspired condemnation of the French Revolution swept British majority opinion and powerfully affected thinking on the Continent.  To Burke, more than any other thinker or politician of his time, goes the credit for creating the intellectual force which saved Europe first from revolutionary chaos and then from dictatorship.

Modern-day conservatives are also profoundly in his debt.  His writings against the French Revolution provided the philosophical foundation for anti-communism in particular and ordered liberty in general.  Read Burke.  All his writings on government and politics are a rich ore, studded with gems of wisdom.