The Oxford illustrated history of Ireland

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Few countries in the world have such a compelling, individual, and stirring history as Ireland. This new volume in a distinguished series offers the most authoritative account of Irish history ever published for the general reader. Written by an expert team of scholars, and richly illustrated throughout, it takes us from the very earliest prehistoric communities and first Christian settlements, through centuries of turbulent change to the present day. The story is one of paradox and ambiguity, as well as of unifying overall themes. Patterns of settlement and colonisation, religious confrontation, and the emergence of new political patterns are among the issues discussed. The question of Irish identity, and the meaning of 'colonialism' in the very Irish sense, raise important questions about the use of language: a special feature of the book is a chapter devoted to the language and literature which preserve, in their way, a record of Irish history. The conflicts, settlements, discontinuities, and unities of Irish history are illustrated with reference to landscape, artefacts, architecture, and an enormous variety of contemporary visual evidence. There are over 200 photographs including 24 full-colour plates, and the volume comes complete with reference material, maps, a chronology, lists of further reading and a full index. Wide-ranging, challenging, and highly readable, this vivid view of Irish history will instruct and entertain students, scholars, and general readers alike.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

• List of colour plates
• List of maps
• 1 Prehistoric and Early Christian Ireland
• 2 The Norman Invasion and the Gaelic Recovery
• 3 Early Modern Ireland, c.1500-1700
• 4 Ascendancy and Union
• 5 Ireland Since 1870
• 6 Irish Literature and Irish History
• Further Reading
• Chronology
• Acknowledgements
• Index.

Reviews provided by Syndetics

Library Journal Review

This very beautiful and lavishly illustrated volume includes six essays by Irish scholars, five covering chronological periods in Irish history and the sixth a particularly stimulating discussion of the interplay between Irish literature and history. Each essay is written by a specialist; Nicholas Canny and editor Foster are probably the best known among them; each incorporates recent research to create a current and authoritative summary of Irish historical scholarship. An excellent annotated bibliography and a chronology add to the book's usefulness. The maps could have been better, but the illustrations alone would make this book worth having.--Nancy C. Cridland, Indiana Univ. Libs., Bloomington (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Booklist Review

Unlike other one-volume histories of Ireland, this work seeks to impart an understanding of Irish history by focusing on the breaks, paradoxes, contradictions, and ambiguities that have given rise to, among other things, certain localizing tendencies in Irish culture that make the Irish at once so dissimilar and yet so like each other. To accomplish this task, a compendium approach is used, with six Irish historians contributing chapters that cover the totality of Irish history from prehistoric times to the present day. A thoughtful and highly informative volume that manages to underscore the ancient and rooted aspects of Irish culture, even while it explores in depth the mobility and shifting of the Irish people into "fractured and sometimes unexpected patterns." Index. --Steve Weingartner