Customer Reviews

The Irish Potato Famine (World Disasters)

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This book doesn't have much detail because it was written for kids. But it covers main points of the potato famine and the events that caused it in a thorough, thoughtful way, pointing out the apathy felt by many English people at the time and the tragedy of so many starving people in Ireland. The last chapter discusses the need to end poverty and hunger in the world.

...but there was something a little weird about this book. In the last chapter, the author starts talking about Malthus and how horrible disasters are inevitable. Although he presents us with the evidence that there was plenty of food available in Ireland, and that it was being shipped out of the country to sell in England, Nardo then makes contradictory statements about how the Irish starved because Peel couldn't secure shipments of food relief from America. I checked out another book in the World Disasters series, and I have this vibe like the people who write and publish these books are Jehovah's Witnesses or else members of a doomsday cult.

I am 12 this was kind of the book I needed for my history report