The Oxford History of Ireland

By Nicholas Canny, Declan Kiberd, David Fitzpatrick, et al.

Book Overview

Few countries can boast as compelling and stirring a history as Ireland. This volume captures all the varied legacies of the Emerald Isle, from the earliest prehistoric communities and the first Christian settlements, through the centuries of turbulent change and creativity, right up to the present day. Written by a team of scholars--all of whom are native to Ireland--this book offers the most authoritative account of Irish history yet published for the general reader. Now available in a smaller, more convenient format, the widely praised and astonishingly in-depth Oxford History of Ireland offers readers the definitive companion to Irish lore, and one that will easily fit in an Aer Lingus traveling bag.
Emphasizing the paradoxes and ambiguities of Irish history, this book presents a more realistic picture than other histories. It explores, for example, the reasons behind the intense regional variations in agriculture, prosperity, and political affiliation in so small a land, and shows why Victorian norms prevail in certain areas of twentieth-century life. It also examines more familiar themes--such as the recurrent religious strife and the shaping of new political entities--and offers a special section on the interaction between Irish history and its rich literary tradition. Wide-ranging and highly readable, this vivid view of Ireland will entertain and inform anyone interested in this fascinating and colorful island nation.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 019285271X
• ISBN13: 9780192852717
• Release Date: August 1992
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• Length: 360 Pages
• Weight: 1.08 lbs.
• Dimensions: 7.6" x 1.0" x 5.1"

Customer Reviews

A collection of essays

This is a book that doesn't have to be read from cover to cover. It is a collection of essays written by different authors on various aspects of Irish history. As such it is a excellent read but it can be a bit confusing for someone getting into Irish history for the first time. For those well into the subject - I recommand this.

This should probably not be the first history of Ireland that you read...

But after you've read a couple of surveys that might not've agreed with each other entirely in tone or overview, this is a great survey for making sense of the broadview disagreements between historians.

Good collection of essays surveying Irish history

For the past few decades, Oxford University Press has published a series of surveys of various topics of history. Consisting of a collection of essays by leading scholars, they possess both the strengths and deficiencies of this approach - while authoritative introductions to their topics, the quality of the writing and the focus can often vary widely. A good editor can mitigate these weaknesses while preserving their strengths, and it is a testament to the efforts of Roy Foster that this volume on the history of Ireland is as good as it is. This book presents the history of Ireland in six chapters - five covering Ireland's past from the prehistoric period to the 1980s, and a sixth that addresses the topic of "Irish Literature and Irish History," a focus unique in the series. Each of these chapters provides a good overview to their respective eras, addressing political, economic, and social developments over the centuries. Some of the essays are inevitably stronger than others - I thought that Donnchadh O'Corrain's account of prehistoric and early Christian Ireland was especially clear and illuminating, while Katharine Simms's chapter on the island in the Middle Ages suffered from its excessive focus on the politics of the period - the book overall provides a reliable and insightful account of the span of Irish history. My only wish would be for a more thoroughly revised edition, one that would take into account both the recent developments in Irish history (David Fitzpatrick's comment that Ireland was "likely to remain" among "the poorest parts of western Europe" is particularly glaring in light of the island's economic emergence as the "Celtic tiger") and the titles that have since been published reflecting Ireland's maturing study of its past.

A Book from one of Ireland's Premier Historians

This is an excellent introduction to Irish history, its complexities, and some up-to-date thinking about how Irish history has been interpreted. It provides general readers with a good survey, based on Foster's magisterial _Modern Ireland_ (1986). The illustrations are well-chosen, and well-presented. An excellent choice for someone who wants to know about Irish history but also wants a book with some sophistication and 'bite' to it.