Modern Ireland: 1600-1972 [Paperback]

R. F. Foster (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0140132503 | ISBN-13: 978-0140132502 | Publication Date: March 6, 1990

A history of Ireland from 1600 to 1972; an account not only of the events themselves but also the way in which those events acted upon the peoples living in Ireland to produce an 'Irish Nation'; a description of that nation's tragedy and resilience.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In what PW described as an "engaging revisionist chronicle," the author traces Irish history from 1600, when the country had a subsistence economy and was home to a welter of peoples, each of whom defined their "Irishness" differently, to the 1970s, when Ireland--despite three centuries of conquest and fissure--was a country with a powerful identity.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Foster's previous books, on Lord Randolph Churchill and Charles Parnell, established his reputation as a fine political biographer. He now turns his attention to a wider subject--the sweep of Irish history from the English intrusion of late Elizabethan times onward--with considerable success. Foster cuts through the Gordian knot of myriad complex issues to give his reader a solid feel for the key factors that have made modern Ireland. Anyone who wants to understand Ireland as it now is must know it as it has been, and that is what Foster does for his audience. For both academic and public collections.
- James A. Casada, Winthrop Coll., Rock Hill, S.C.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 704 pages
• Publisher: Penguin (Non-Classics) (March 6, 1990)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0140132503
• ISBN-13: 978-0140132502
• Product Dimensions: 7.7 x 5.1 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #68,605 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

66 of 70 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Quite superb treatment of Irish history, April 20, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Modern Ireland: 1600-1972 (Paperback)

This is not only the best available work on modern Irish history but a wonderful example of how to give impartial treatment to a highly controversial topic. Many myths surround the Irish past, but Foster successfully strips them away. He is not afraid to criticise the post-1922 Irish state and politicians such as de Valera when necessary, but he establishes beyond doubt that the record of British rule in Ireland before that date was patchy and unwholesome at best, ignorant and vicious at worst. He also illuminates the complexities of the Ulster problem, showing that it is easier to caricature the province's Protestant reactionaries than to understand them. One other praiseworthy feature of the book is its biographical capsules, which are separated from the main text and neatly summarise the lives of the leading personalities of Irish history. If you feel you have a gap in your knowledge of Ireland, you must start with this book.

28 of 35 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A genuine masterpiece - essential reading., October 4, 2002

By 

T. Maddison "Tim Maddison" (London) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Modern Ireland: 1600-1972 (Paperback)

Roy Foster's volume is one of the most beautifully written and compelling histories on any subject one could hope to read. He succeeds brilliantly in his stated aim of going beyond a straight historical narrative into examining how the events of Irish history (1600 - early 1970s) effected the people and (most crucially) shaped, for good and for bad, their view of themselves and their place in these events. His most trenchant and consistent stance is a remorseless questioning of the myth-mongering and self-exaltation that has shaped, arguably warped, the self image of members of all sections of the island's population, leading to the adoption of stances and states of mind that make conflict and unbending dogmatism so hard to root out. In particular his analysis of the myopia and double-think that self-proclaimed 'pure' Republicanism demanded of its followers makes for sobering reading for anyone who still thinks that Ireland's is a simple story. The dire consequences of Partition for the Catholic/Republican minority under the Ulster statelet are well illustrated, but equally the fact that it contributed in huge measure to the creation and maintenance of a stable and largely unified independent Irish state. Equally thought provoking is his highlighting of the contradictions of that strand of nationalism that defined itself in strictly Gaelic and Catholic terms yet demanded the allegiance and incorporation of those Irish whose self-identification was very different and thus viewed as 'illegitimate' by these same terms. The bigotry and paranoia that has marked part of the northern protestant unionist mindset are well depicted, but so too are the particular Republican stances and post-Independence policies that did much to feed and (in their terms) justify it. Foster is trenchant in showing how Republicanism has found it so much easier to aim it's attacks on a British Government that (however reluctantly) had put unpartitioned 32 county Home Rule on the table prior to 1916 than on an Irish minority whose resistance to the Republican view of their proper and true destiny made this impossible. This final post-Parnell section is probably the books most absorbing, dealing as it does with issues of recent and contemporary resonance, but the rest of the book no less enthralling. The only area perhaps not covered fully enough, in view of the subject's ongoing contentiousness, are the causes (not the effects) of the Famine's catastrophic outcome. An essential read, biased only in the direction of challenging received assumptions.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Best single volume history of Ireland, June 17, 2010

By 

Desmond Curran "anxious mofo" (Ireland) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Modern Ireland: 1600-1972 (Paperback)

This book is hands down the most well written and informative single volume history of modern Ireland I have read. It covers the subjsect in a cincise, thorough fashion without taking the reader down the more obscure tangents the subject tends towards. A great introduction.
The first time I read it I did so straight through, it is that well written.