Congress and the American Tradition [With Inscription]

Chicago: Henry Regnery Company, 1959. First edition. Octavo. Original black cloth and dust jacket (not price-clipped). Dusting and spotting to page block; two leaves (pp. 176, 177) joined together at bottom (affecting text), each with a closed one-inch tear at bottom; closed one-inch tear to the right bottom corner of front jacket panel; edgewear to base and spine; faint smudging and rubbing to dust jacket. Inscribed by James Burnham on front free endpaper. Very good in very good dust jacket.. A rarely inscribed work by James Burnham (1905-1987). Burnham was an American political philosopher, theorist, and political commentator who became a prominent leader of the post-war American conservative intellectual movement. During the 1930s Burnham was a Trotskyist activist who, along with Sidney Hook, organized the American Workers Party and, in 1934, supported its merger with the Communist League of America to form the US Workers Party. He became a Trotskyist in 1935, but would break with Trotskyism and resign from the Workers Party in 1940. Thereafter, Burnham became a committed anti-communist and post-war conservative intellectual who advocated for the defeat of global communism. Burnham began his career as a professor of philosophy at New York University in 1929, publishing his groundbreaking book, The Managerial Revolution: What is Happening in the World in 1941. He joined William F. Buckley Jr. in 1955 to found National Review, which he would edit and contribute to for years to follow. President Reagan awarded Burnham the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1983. Burnham has long been celebrated as one of the leading lights of the modern conservative movement. In Congress and the American Tradition, Burnham analyzes the history and function of Congress and the risks that the legislature faces from executive branch encroachment. This first edition of Congress and the American Tradition contains a personal inscription by Burnham with his trademark signature.