Ireland Books

This is a fine book for the golf enthusiast anywhere. It is a fascinating history and celebration of the game played by those who love it. Beginning with the origins of golf in Ireland this is a story of dynamic personalities who helped popularize the game. The evolution of the tools of the game is included with many great photos of early equipment and memorabilia. The stories of the great local and international golfers of Ireland are told in detail with some great action photos. Contributions of others such as Arnold Palmer are included, as is extensive coverage of ladies' golf, which has always been popular in Ireland. One of my favorite things about golf is the beauty of the courses and the Irish ones shown here are among the world's most exciting and varied, carved into the natural landscape. Any golfer will find something of joy in this book.

This is a fine book for the golf enthusiast anywhere. It is a fascinating history and celebration of the game played by those who love it. Beginning with the origins of golf in Ireland this is a story of dynamic personalities who helped popularize the game. The evolution of the tools of the game is included with many great photos of early equipment and memorabilia. The stories of the great local and international golfers of Ireland are told in detail with some great action photos. Contributions of others such as Arnold Palmer are included, as is extensive coverage of ladies' golf, which has always been popular in Ireland. One of my favorite things about golf is the beauty of the courses and the Irish ones shown here are among the world's most exciting and varied, carved into the natural landscape. Any golfer will find something of joy in this book.

Farr's book is a well-written and important contribution to the study of the Book of Kells. Her analysis of image placement, image detail, liturgical context, and historical context provides a comprehensive base for her arguments. Moreover, the arguments are supported by contemporary Kells scholars as well as early exegetical writers such as Bede, Tertullian, Tyconius, Augustine, and Maximus of Turin. Farr certainly breaks new ground in her analysis of Folio 114r and provides a believable explanation for its placement and function. Farr also revises older liturgical interpretations of the manuscript and extends them to consider the manuscript's use during the office as opposed to its use during the mass. The style and language that Farr uses indicates that this work is intended for medieval scholars with some background in the insular tradition. I would add that a less experienced scholar should be able to understand the material, although he should have ready access to a Latin dictionary, an English dictionary, and perhaps Michelle Brown's Understanding Medieval Manuscripts: A Guide to Technical Terms. Nevertheless, Farr's book presents a fascinating analysis of a manuscript that has mesmerized the world for hundreds of years. I would recommend this book to any one interested in the Book of Kells, insular manuscripts, and/or illuminated texts. Additionally, I would recommend it to anyone interested in early church history and practice. I believe that Farr has more than accomplished her stated goal and has comprehensively expanded the collective understanding of a text traditionally considered to be a mystery.

This book is one of the finest, most complete studies of the Book of Kells that I have ever read. Dr. Farr is a true scholar!

This is a very good analysis of what was, and possibly still is, a violent, self-perpetuating feud. Both sides of the Border were guilty, and victims. And both sides were happy to increase the level of brutality for each round of attack/response. Great reading with lessons for today.

Excellent book that does an outstanding effort detailing the historical 1296-1568 period of the Scottish / English border, complimenting the book The Steel Bonnets by Fraser G. MacDonald.

An exceptional book, from an exceptional writer. Not that many people understand all the intricacies of Bosnain culture like Ivan Lovrenovic does. Simply, one of the best books you can read about often misunderstood Bosnia.

A very special book.

One of the stereotypes about Bosnia and the recent conflicts was the common complaint that the history and culture of the region were impossibly complex, incomprehensible. The stereotype furnished a convenient excuse for those who wished to acquiesce in the organized aggression and crimes and the country and its people.

This short book is the clearest, most accessible account of Bosnian culture, history, and identity available in English. It should be the first book read in any discussion of Bosnia. Each phase of history--from the medieval period to the tragic wars and genocide of 1992-1995--is depicted with concision, humanity, and depth. The writing is lucid and the stunning black-and-white photo-illustrations are integrated with care and sensitivity into the narrative. Recommended not only for those interested in Bosnia-Herzegovina only, but for those interested in European history, East-West relations, and the dynamic of religion, culture, and identity; i.e. to both specialists in the Balkans and to the wide readership of those interested in history and culture anywhere.

The reader will emerge with a sense not of incomprehensibility, but of the richness, vitality, and uniqueness of an extraordinary place and people.

The Pyrenees boundary between France and Spain began in 1659 as a pretty arbitrary line, but over the course of the next two centuries it was worked out as a national border locally. Sahlins studied the Cerdanya, a valley in the Pyrenees split between France and Spain, and shows how localism formed national identities that were necessary for delineating the boundary.

According to Sahlins, the changes that took place to form the France/Spain boundary were not only a formation of national identity, but also a change in the governments' views of sovereignty, moving from an idea of jurisdiction and dominion over subjects, to territorial control. He shows how policy in the Cerdanya reflected this change from jurisdiction to territory, the change from frontier land to a true boundary.

Sahlins' book is a fascinating look at what makes a nation, and a microcosmic study of the formation of the modern nation-state. His study of the Cerdanya gives the book insights, not just into governmental state-building, but also the construction of identity, the necessity of boundaries for people to define themselves in opposition to the other.

This book is pure genious, focusing on the important issue of nations, identity and borders, specifically the Franco-Spanish border as it was deliniated from the 17th century onward. This is a fascinating account. Most would say that the pyrennes offer an ideal border and they would be correct, but how the nations were able to imprint national idenitities on the clannish localities of the mountains is fascinating reading on a subject most of us would never deighn to think important. A fun and important account, fascinating, ingenious and one of a kind in its originality.

Seth J. Frantzman

During the time of slaughter in the trenches of World War I, all participating countries reached out to the older and younder to provide the manpower they needed. This book started out as part of the oral history being compiled by historian Van Emden. He found that the people still alive to interview were getting younger and younger at the time they served. Many were fifteen or sixteen when they were on the front line, some were as young as thirteen. Perhaps a quarter of a million men were underage when they served in the Army.

This was a time when birth certificates, indeed any identity papers at all were not needed to enlist. It continues the tradition of earlier wars, Waterloo, the American Civil War where the recruiting people were so desparate for men that they took any they could find. And it reminds one of the pictures of Hitler and the young soldiers he met during the end of World War II.

These young soldiers did not do badly. Many received awards for heroic deads. Some became officers. When captured by the Germans, the 'Boy Soldiers' were segregated and sent to school.

This book presents a side to World War I that hasn't been seen before.

Boy Soldiers of the Great War is how history ought to be written. It's a riveting, deeply moving account of the tens of thousands of boys and young men who not only served their country, but, as van Emden shows, quite probably saved it.

van Emden has done his homework and it shows on every page. While other oral histories simply collect and present first-person accounts, van Emden has discovered many previously untold stories, then puts them in social, political, personal and historical context.

Once started, the book won't be put down. Once finished, it won't be forgotten.

If you want to know the real story behind the history of chimney sweeps, this is the book to read. The author did excellent research on the subject. It should be of interest to anyone in the chimney sweeping profession or the history of any labor force.

Interesting, well-written account of what life was like as a chimney sweep and climbing boy before modern times. Ms. Cullingford brings out little-known facts about the trade, making this book an interesting read for both chimney sweeps and the general public. I highly recommend it!

This book serves as an overview of the historiography of the British Empire. It is not a history of the empire by any stretch and really looks at the motives for expansion and shows what other historians are debating on the subject. There is a distinct justification of Marxism throughout the book although they treat it relatively fairly and do point out when Marxist theory does not apply such as Africa. The book does expose the theory that a gentleman class of capitalists was in charge of British expansion and was well placed within the government and financial sectors to control expansion during this time period. Hughes and Cain try to show how this class rose to prominence and then fell with the rest of the empire in the post world war II era through the sterling zone. The majority of the book focuses on the years from 1688-1939. There is only really one chapter on the post 1939 world although what is said about it is very interesting.

Overall this is not a book that you want to start with if you are just learning about British Empire. I would recommend either Dennis Judd's book on Empire or the Oxford history five volume history of the British Empire. Once you have a good grasp on the history of the British Empire this is an excellent book to summarize that knowledge and understand the historical debates affecting the historiography of empire today. The authors are truly the top in their field when considering the theories of empire and this book is a landmark not only in the study of the British empire but empires as a whole.

Great historians of British imperialism have tended to come in pairs for the last half-century (Robinson and Gallagher being the other pair), and this is the magnum opus for Cain and Hopkins. In many ways this book is an historiographical response to Robinson and Gallagher, and it is rich in themes adapted both from Robinson and Gallagher, as well as from earlier imperial commentators such as Marx, Hobson, and Lenin.

It argues, amongst other things, that the primary motivator of British overseas expansion were the "gentlemanly interests" emanating from the metropole. That is, interests in the financial and the service sector, non-working incomes that were the natural extension of the British aristocracy of yesteryear. Robinson and Gallagher's ideas may hold true in many cases, but this work is indispensable for demonstrating that perhaps underlying all the strategic interests were economic interests of the most powerful variety - aristocratic businessmen that held sway at Westminster. The connections between gentlemanly capitalists and government officials ran deep, they argue; everything from their common public school upbringing, to powerful amalgamations of finance and government.

This book also includes a detailed discussion of informal empire, yet it considerably modifies Robinson and Gallagher's thesis by ascribing both formal and informal imperialism to the interests of the City (that is, financial and service sector interests). In other words, both formal and informal empire found their impetus in the City's financial interests. This otherwise Hobsonian (J.A. Hobson, "Imperialism: A Study") thesis therefore modifies the economically-based theories of both Hobson himself, as well as Marxist historians, by emphasizing financial and service sector interests, rather than being preoccupied with industrial interests. Industrial interests, according to Cain and Hopkins, were not connected with London policy-makers, and were not sufficiently wealthy and integrated to have any considerable effect on official policy.

First published in 1993, and having been re-issued in one volume in 2001, this book has sparked fresh debate on British imperialism, as well as shed light on the issue of globalization in the twenty-first century.

Because of the popularity of Pirates of the Caribbean, many books about pirates have been published in the past few years. Most are light-weight works.

The Buccaneer's Realm is Berenson Little's second "backgrounder" about pirates. This former US Navy SEAL officer wants the reader to understand the world that the pirate lived in. This is not the easiest book to read because of the myriad of detail the author presents, but the "ordeal" is well worth the effort

This is one of several excellent books I've read recently about pirates.
My interest was originally sparked in 1995 with David Cordingly's "Under the Black Flag" because this book pictured the privateers/pirates as sea-going guerrillas.

Beside "The Republic of Pirates", the following are worth reading:
Peter Earle Pirate Wars
The Sack of Panama
Stephan Talty Empire of Blue Water
Benerson Little The Sea Rover's Practice
Richard Zacks The Pirate Coast
Frederick C. Leiner End of the Barbary Terror
Colin Woodard The Republic of Pirates
Together these works cover piracy from the late 16th to the early 19th Century.

In 1674 it's three years since Henry Morgan's pirates sacked Panama and peace is spreading - but buccaneers are set to seize opportunity from a failing Spanish Empire and Spain itself produces pirates which will lead to new challenges. Any college-level collection strong in marine history will appreciate this new in-depth focus on pirate culture and history, considering their deeds, the Spanish Main's world and sentiments, and pirate life as a whole. It's a lively survey recommended for any in-depth marine history collection - and many a general college-level world history holding.

Diane C. Donovan
California Bookwatch

John D. Bell provides perhaps the best account of the history of the Bulgarian Communist Party available in English. Together with Richard Crampton's history of Bulgaria, it is also the best scholarly source of more general Bulgarian history in the 20th century. A must for anyone studying Bulgaria. The book uses interviews of dissidents who fled Bulgaria during the years of communist domination to supplement available archival sources. The result is a magnificently documented narrative that brings to light some controversial and unclear episodes in the history of Bulgarian communism. The book demonstrates, for example, that Zhivkov's power was not unchallenged and that internal dissent, even if it came from the Party or the armed forces, existed even here, in the country widely considered to have been the closest Soviet ally and follower. The book also demonstrates the reciprocity of alliance politics within the Soviet bloc. Challenging the existing convention, John Bell demonstrates that relations within the Warsaw pact were not unidirectional. The Soviet Union responded to various interests of the Bulgarian leadership and often helped their advancement. In addition, the book is thoroughly readable and, provides impartial insight into the almost century-old history of the Bulgarian labor movement and its political organizations.

John D. Bell provides perhaps the best account of the history of the Bulgarian Communist Party available in English. Together with Richard Crampton's history of Bulgaria, it is also the best scholarly source of more general Bulgarian history in the 20th century. A must for anyone studying Bulgaria. The book uses interviews of dissidents who fled Bulgaria during the years of communist domination to supplement available archival sources. The result is a magnificently documented narrative that brings to light some controversial and unclear episodes in the history of Bulgarian communism. The book demonstrates, for example, that Zhivkov's power was not unchallenged and that internal dissent, even if it came from the Party or the armed forces, existed even here, in the country widely considered to have been the closest Soviet ally and follower. The book also demonstrates the reciprocity of alliance politics within the Soviet bloc. Challenging the existing convention, John Bell demonstrates that relations within the Warsaw pact were not unidirectional. The Soviet Union responded to various interests of the Bulgarian leadership and often helped their advancement. In addition, the book is thoroughly readable and, provides impartial insight into the almost century-old history of the Bulgarian labor movement and its political organizations.