Johnny Lyons at Dublin Review of Books:
Anyone who takes on Hegel knows they have their work cut out. He is among the most complex, capacious and ambitious philosophers in the history of Western thought. And unlike other comparable figures in that tradition, such as Plato, Descartes or Hume, his style of writing can be notoriously difficult – indeed one of the more striking aspects of the book is the contrast between Bourke’s consistently clear, exact and clipped style and the frequently obscure, vague and stentorian prose of his subject. As the title of Bourke’s book signals, it is not a synoptic or comprehensive study of Hegel’s thought. Rather it is primarily concerned with the historicism and political philosophy of the nineteenth century thinker and even then in a quite defined way.
Bourke indicates in the book’s preface that his goal is threefold: to explain Hegel’s notion of world revolutions, especially the French Revolution, within the context of his time; secondly, to provide a more discriminating picture of Hegel’s understanding of the historical backdrop of modern European history from which the 1789 world revolution arose; and, finally, to consider the sharply mixed reception of Hegel’s thought in the twentieth century, before confronting the knotty question of the applicability of past political ideas to present concerns.
more here.
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