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Editor's Introduction To:
The Miracle Of Government

James Burnham

Like many in this century, James Burnham came to the serious study of man and government by way of Communism: he became a true believer, suffered disillusion, and cast about for something new. What he found was profound enough. His The Managerial Revolution was one of the most influential books of this age. In one sense it was too influential: it's no longer read, because nearly everything in it has become accepted.

His The Machiavellians, written in 1943 and revised twenty years later, is also long out of print, which is a great pity: in that work Burnham examines a number of political theorists, summarizes their work, and presents his own view of political science. As he says in its preface: "Having come to know something of the gigantic ideology of Bolshevism, I knew that I was not going to be able to settle for the pygmy ideologies of Liberalism, social democracy, refurbished laissez-faire, or the inverted cut-rate Bolshevism called 'fascism' " Any serious student of politics would do well to locate a copy and read it very carefully; for Burnham was far from being a dry academic. Scholarly enough, he never trotted out scholarship without very good reasons.

Government, Burnham says, is a wonderful thing; so wonderful that our ancestors (who were, we must continue to remind ourselves, every whit as smart as we) hastened to ascribe this wonderful thing to actions of gods and demi-gods. In this short essay Burnham lays bare a dread secret; and tells us why there may yet be empire in mankind's future.

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Framed