yuval levin joins us now.>> thank you very much for having me. >> woodruff: so why did you think it was necessary to go back what, over 200 areas to these great thinkers, writers, who disagreed over the french revolution to help us understand more about what we're going through today? >> well, this is a book about the roots of our political differences. it's easy looking at our politics now to take for granted the left and the right. we've always had a broadly conservative party in our politics, a broodly progressive party. they've always been at each other's throats an its he easy to just assume that that is what our political discourse looks like. this book says rather than take it for granted let's think about what it is, where it comes from and why, one good way to do that is to think about the first real instance of the recognize nizeable left right divide which we find in an intense idea logical debate that was taking place in britain and america at the end of the 18th century. when we identify with the

this week on q&a, yuval levin. >> yuval levin, your wikipedia site has in the second sentence, he has been called, quote, probably the most influential conservative intellectual of the obama era. what's that mean? >> that's a very good question. i wonder by whom. >> i think it's jonathan chait. >> ok. well then probably, in the course of criticizing me for something or other, but i guess what it means you know an intellectual in politics is a person who tries to connect events and practical questions to deeper currents, theoretical or philosophical currents. there are narrower definitions. you know paul johnson, the great british historian, wrote a book called "intellectuals" in the '80s in which he said that an intellectual in politics is actually a person who tries to remake the world in the image of some theory he has. in that sense, there probably is no such thing as a conservative intellectual, but i think if you take a broader view of it and a notion that an intellectual tries to connect theory and practice then maybe that's right. that's certainly part of what my work tries to

this week yuval levin and his look "the great debate" edmund burke, thomas paine and the birth of rightand left. and if the founder and editor of national affairs discusses the origin of the political left right divide arguing that today's partisanship began with the debates over the french revolution. this program is about an hour. >> host: hi yuval. thanks for doing this. welcome to c-span. i'm going to be grilling you on your new book, "the great debate" and i will try to do my best for brian lamb and we will see where it goes. let's just start right off the bat. who was edmund burke? >> guest: edmund burke was a statesman, a political thinker and writer of the late 18th century. he was born in 1729 and lived until 1797. his political career is really from the late 1760s until his

is yuval levin. there is a look at some cell research. issues01 one of the big that the new president faced was the question of whether and how the federal government should fund embryonic still -- stem research. the question was whether it was moral it in the promise or potential of it to spend public money on that kind of research. the president made a decision in which he was advised that said you could spend money on lines that are it existed at that point, but not on new ones. of announcingrse that decision, he said these kinds of issues will stay with us. and we need help in thinking about them. he called together a group of 18 scholars, almost all of them academics who would come together several times per year to consider a challenging environmental question that has some public wallace the implication and provide information in terms of publication and reports. cloning,e a report on stem cell research. they wrote a report on enhancement technologies. wrote reports on carrying --caring for the aging aging, dementia and other issue

this week's yuval levin and is look "the great debate" edmund burke, thomas paine, and the birth of the right and the left. in it, the founder and editor of national affairs discusses the origin of the political left, right divide arguing that today's partisanship begin with the debates over the french revolution. this program is about an hour. >> host: hi yuval. thanks for joining us. welcome to c-span. i am going to be grilling you on your book, "the great debate" and i will try to do my best five -- which means a lot of profanity and we will see where it goes. i will just start right off the bat, who was edmund burke? >> guest: edmund burke was an irish born english politician, statesman and political thinker and writer of the late 18th century. he was born in 1729. he lived until 1727. his political career is really from the late 17 60's until his death and it was an unusual political career and that it was a very much intellectual career. from the very beginning he was as much a thinker is a politician and the thinking he did was about how to help his country through period of inte

[applause] luck.d >> later today watch an encore presentation of queuing day with yuval levin. publicerly journal of essays and political thought. here is some of what he had to say. in 2000 one before september 11 one of the big issues that the then new president faced was the question above whether and how the federal government should fund embryonic stem cell research. this means the taking of the human life. the question is if it is moral to spend public money on that kind of research. the president made a decision in which he was advised that said you could spend money on lines of cells that already existed but not on new ones here yet you would not encourage the further destruction of human embryos. in the course of announcing that , he said these issues will stay with us, they are not going away . he called together the biometrics commission, a group of 18 scholars, almost all of them academics who would come together several times per year, consider a challenging question holocenepublic implications and provide advice to the administration and the country in the form of