Ireland Books

This ex-pat Jewish Brit loved this book! Not only did it make me nostalgic for home, but it told me things I never knew! This is a concise but complete guide indeed. I fully intend to take it with me on my next trip back to England.

I am planning a trip to London and the surrounding countryside and I stumbled across this guidebook. Because I am Jewish, I was interested in learning more about the culture and history of British Jewish places while I traveled. This book is packed with facts that are presented in a very entertaining way. The author talks about places regular guidebooks miss, and she makes you aware of the great contributions Jews have made to England. The book is well laid out and very easy to use. I can't wait to use it for walking tours when I am abroad!

I'm a very busy guy who does an awful lot of reading. I made room, however, for this book, and it didn't disappoint. (This is a solid effort!) Eby was able to grab me by the collar and take me back to Spain circa 1936-1939 and place me in the ranks of the Lincoln Battalion. Believe me, I was there.

One important note. Eby does a great job of not romanticizing the Lincolns nor does he demonize their opponents. Very, very balanced.

Written by retired Professor of English Cecil D. Eby, Comrades and Commissars: The Lincoln Battalion in the Spanish Civil War is a fascinating history of 2,800 American fighters who formed a Battalion to fight against Generalissimo Francisco Franco and his right-wing nationalists against the Republican government of Spain during the Spanish Civil War in the late 1930's. Building upon Eby's previous study published in 1969, "Between the Bullet and the Lie", Comrades and Commissars draws from additional data that Eby gathered in recent decades, including the Lincoln Battalion archives that have been hidden in a Moscow storeroom for sixty years. These papers shed light on some of the most provocative questions concerning the Battalion, including which Americans were persecuted or even executed by the brigade commissariat. An in-depth reference, composed by an author with a solid reputation for expertise, balance, and objectivity on the topic, Comrades and Commissars is a welcome addition to world and military history reference shelves.

While clearly not exhaustive, this one-volume encyclopedia is a goldmine of key facts about significant individuals, movements, and styles, as well as such subjects as crime, family, mathematics, mirrors, nature, patronage, population, rhetoric, science, and wars. You will find here a convenient explanation of the term "Renaissance," a French word applied to an Italian movement. If you thought Mannerism was simply a reaction to the High Renaissance style, its entry will enlighten you. However, if you want to know the difference between, say, the High Renaissance style in Rome and in Venice, you will have to read the entries for individual artists and draw your own conclusions -- or go farther afield than this book. It's not quite that comprehensive. The descriptions of particular cities focus on political history rather than artistic history, a puzzling lapse considering that Siena, Florence, Rome, and Venice, to name a few, had such identifiably different styles. Some gaps notwithstanding, this is a very useful book. My calling it "affordable" may be a misnomer if it's unavailable. Keep it on your wish list and hope the publishers reprint it.

I bought my copy of this book some years ago when studying for my Bed degree. It must be on it's upteenth reprint by now, but still remains the most informative, clearly laid out and interesting reference/guide to the Italian Renassance that I have encountered. This book is a constant source of 'factual' information, dates, names, places and people and though my issue runs to three hundred and sixty pages and two hundred and thirty seven illustrations it is still a handy portable size. John Hale has edited a long list of Ren. scholars contributions into an easy, succinct style of writing with each entry in the Encyclopaedia having references to source material and further reading. The only, slight, drawback to this book is that their are no colour pictures - but this probably keeps the price down and that has to be good! I would recommend this excellent introduction to the Italian Renaissance to anyone interested in the subject, particularly those studying a course.

The Confederacy's Fighting Chaplain, Father John B. Bannon by Phillip Thomas Tucker, is an excellent biography and Civil War History. The book gives the background of Father Bannon, beginning with his education in Ireland and his service in St. Louis. The conflicts which were tearing St. Louis, as well as the nation, apart are well reflected in the life of Bannon as he was making his decision as to how to respond to the gathering storm. Not limiting his narrative to a mere recitation of facts, Tucker acquaints the reader with the factors working on, and the thoughts going on within Bannon's mind which led him to his conclusion that the Confederacy represented the cause of freedom and Christian civilization in America. The chapters covering Bannon's service as chaplain for the First Missouri Confederate Brigade skillfully blend the details of the chaplain's life with the greater history of the War in general. The final section of the book relates Bannon's unique service as a diplomatic agent on behalf of the Confederacy and his role as personal emissary from President Davis to Pope Pius IX. Davis had asked Bannon to undertake a mission to Ireland to attempt to dissuade Irish from enlisting in the Union Army. It was Bannon's initiative to undertake the overture which almost resulted in recognition of the Confederacy by the Vatican. The unique intertwining of Bannon's roles as chaplain and diplomat within the larger story in which he played a part, make this a very worthwhile addition to the Civil War literature

The Confederacy's Fighting Chaplain, Father John B. Bannon by Phillip Thomas Tucker, is an excellent biography and Civil War History. The book gives the background of Father Bannon, beginning with his education in Ireland and his service in St. Louis. The conflicts which were tearing St. Louis, as well as the nation, apart are well reflected in the life of Bannon as he was making his decision as to how to respond to the gathering storm. Not limiting his narrative to a mere recitation of facts, Tucker acquaints the reader with the factors working on, and the thoughts going on within Bannon's mind which led him to his conclusion that the Confederacy represented the cause of freedom and Christian civilization in America. The chapters covering Bannon's service as chaplain for the First Missouri Confederate Brigade skillfully blend the details of the chaplain's life with the greater history of the War in general. The final section of the book relates Bannon's unique service as a diplomatic agent on behalf of the Confederacy and his role as personal emissary from President Davis to Pope Pius IX. Davis had asked Bannon to undertake a mission to Ireland to attempt to dissuade Irish from enlisting in the Union Army. It was Bannon's initiative to undertake the overture which almost resulted in recognition of the Confederacy by the Vatican. The unique intertwining of Bannon's roles as chaplain and diplomat within the larger story in which he played a part, make this a very worthwhile addition to the Civil War literature.

Although it is now almost fifty years since the first edition appeared, a recent rereading reminded me why this has long been considered the essential English-language oveview of the social thought of turn-of-the-century continental Europe (Germany, France, Italy, and Austria). Hughes focuses on the central issues in social theory--positivism, pragmatism, idealism, irrationalism, materialism, liberalism--as they were addressed by the most innovative and influential thinkers of the period (notably Freud, Durkheim, Croce, Bergson, Sorel, and Pareto, and--Hughes' hero--Weber). Hughes assess ideas at a high level of abstraction, so this is probably not the book for a reader with no previous acquaintance with modern social theory. And although he sketches in the social and political background and offers penetrating biographical sketches, Hughes does not undertake the kind of close reading exemplified by Carl Schorske's Fin-de-Siecle Vienna, which demonstrates the intimate links between intellectuals' life experience and their ideas. But not many works of history age this well. One sign of Hughes' success: closing this book, I wanted to pick up Freud and Durkheim and Weber again.

This is an important book that is deservedly back in print and well worth reading at a time when we seem to be reliving the mistakes of the positivistic surge at the end of the nineteenth century, deja vu all over again. The crash of the Hegelian movement and the reversal of thought in the post-Hegelian generation saw many influenced by the (quite metaphysical) Comtean positivism, among them none other than Charles Darwin. The effect is practically cast in granite in the works of Marx who unwittinlgy signatures the trend. The tide of positivism carrying its distinct set of hidden metaphysical premises and limits was fairly well exposed at the time, but in the age of dominant Darwinism it has made a comeback in disguise. Hughes goes through the whole development tracing the stream of influences and gives us an significant portrait of intellectual history we seemed doomed to relive none the wiser. (Reviewed from memory, I think I got it right)

This is my favorite biography of the Countess. It seems to be the most complete and unbiased version of her life that I have read. I recommend this book to any serious student of Irish history.

I have read several biographies of Constance Markievicz. This proves to be the most complete as well as the most enjoyable read. Haverty does an admirable job of tracing Constance's life from her sheltered childhood on the Co. Sligo estate of her Anglo-Irish family, to her years in the Arts Salons of Paris, to her conversion to a revolutionary leading the charge of Irish Republicanism and Labour. The imagery and language of this book, will make this a treat for the reader. Quite informative and well researched, I highly recommend this book.

This book has the rare quality of being a classroom text as well as a report. Today's Russia. Pyramid schemes, religion, rave parties,rock music, detective stories, cinema, pets, porn, graffiti, tattooing... the carnival of crazy New Russia to be read overnight. A shock.

Going to Russia? Buy it. Interested in reading about contemporary Russia beyond what the newspapers tell you? Buy it. Taking a class on Russian culture? Buy it. I really can't recommend this book enough for specialists and novices alike. There's something to please everybody here.

I have this book, havent read it, but browsing it, looks promising, Ill provide the spiel/foreword inside the d/j of the edition I have, as this is pretty-good & will probably help other people considering buying it...

' A.F.N Clarke served as a paratroop officer in Belfast and in Crossmaglen, place-names recognized on the mainland only through their recurrence in the grim headlines and the grimmer newsreel images.most observers are insulated from reality by the media: what does it really feel like to be part of an army of occupation on home soil. ? What are the private attitudes of trained soldiers, operating in conditions of extreme stress, fatigue, and squalor ordered to hold the lines in an ancient quarrel -- a quarrel whose causes may be blindingly irrelevant, but whose consequences are deadly.?

Here is a report from the front line, a documentary account of the emotions, and the reactions, of one of the men we pay to kill. This is an account that spurns compromise: this, precisely is how that sad land feels, reported by a professional. It makes disconcerting reading: A.F.N Clarke, works with unpalatable fact, : the vision that frames his story has an unwelcome clarity-and he brings to this account the unquestionable talents of a gifted writer..

Capt AFN Clarke served in the Parachute regiment as a private, NCO, and commisioned officer, from 1971 to 1978. '

Contact is the best account of military service in North Ireland during the latest eruption of terrorism. It gives us a fresh view of the "Troubles" from a British paratrooper who served in Belfast and Crossmaglen. It discusses lessons that might apply to the violence now taking place in Isreal.

The O'Sullivans are a family living in Ireland in the 1930s. Mother and Father and Michael and Brigid are often at their wits end dealing with the mischievous but loveable twins, Liam and Francie.

Hilda Van Stockum brings her characteristic wit, understanding of children and enchantment to the simplicity of family life. It is chock full of delightful adventures and sub-plots from a bygone era.

Brush up on your brogue and prepare for a delightful read-aloud for the whole family.

The sequels - *Francie on the Run* and *Pegeen* are wonderful too. *Pegeen* is our favorite.

Great story to read aloud to kids. Characters are spunky and positive. We went through the three books of this series non-stop.

Dorthea Meding's recent translation is timely and of interest to both historians of this important subject, the resistance, or Widerstand, within Germany itself to the course of the war, and its effects upon Germans then, and in the future. It is a remarkeable achievement in addition of skillful interviewing with the almost all of the surviving spouses of the key players in the 1944 plot to not only end HItler's lilfe, but to rescue the country from the brutal bombing, and mass expulsions taking place in the East at this time. It is humorously recounted, often (in the case of Dietrich Bonheffer's widow), always involved in the person of these women their constant concern for their children, their roles, and their views of the importance of the conspiracy later for Germany, and for what would came after the ashes of 1945. The women interviewed are extremely individualistic, and spirited, although many of them are close now to their eighties, or older. this reviewer regards the book as an important contribution to womens' literature, as well as to the literature of the resistance of this time.

What you ever wanted to know about the wifes whose men died fighting against Hitler in the underground during the Third Reich. Very intimate, touching and informing.