Richard Bourke studied in Dublin, Oxford and Cambridge, and currently teaches in the Department of History at Queen Mary, University of London. He specialises in British and Irish History, focussing on Enlightenment political thought. He has published on Romanticism, ancient political thought, the political ideas of Edmund Burke, and the Northern Ireland troubles. He is currently writing Empire and Revolution: The Political Life of Edmund Burke for Princeton University Press. His research at the Beinecke is directed toward the completion of this monograph.