Europe Books

This book is a very nice explanation of what it must have been like for one man whose body was found buried at Pompeii during the volcanic eruption. How people probably had very little understanding of volcanos and how dangerous they could be. People in Pompeii were used to earthquakes so they didn't become as concerned as they should have before the full eruption took place. When it finally became clear how bad it could be, people had a choice of leaving their homes and trying to flee under horrific circumstances or being somewhat protected inside their homes and buildings. Those who fled successfully survived but many died fleeing and everyone died who stayed.

I read, The Buried City of Pompeii. It told the story of the ancient volcanoe Vesuvious through the eyes of Eros, one of the skeletons in the stewards quarters of The House of the Menander. The auther writes about Eros' day, as well as what happened after the city was buried. It has good pictures. There are some ancient artifacts, some old photos, and some new ones of the area after the erruption.

Omigosh, this book is fantastic! I cannot say enough good things about it! This brings history to life like nothing I've ever seen. Combining photographs of the ruins with detailed paintings of the fictitious characters, I Was There takes you back in time from the first page. My 6-year-old was completely captivated by the story of Eros and his daughter, which not only gives a very plausible suggestion for the findings at real-life "house of Menander," but also explains much about ancient Roman life along the way--from baths to markets to clothing and food. This is a MUST for any young student of antiquity or future tourist of Italy.

The pictures were really great. I really liked the painting of Eros when he went to the baths, and the photographs when they were digging for Pompeii. I really liked Sylvia, Eros' daughter. She is my age (six). They have found the remains of a priest's lunch (berries and nuts) and five REALLY old eggs. I'd like to find Sylvia's ring when we go to Pompeii this spring. (Hey, that rhymes!)

No one nows what to do.Mt.Vesuvius is erupting!Ash is buried on the city of Pompeii.A boy named Pliny see's the black cluod coming out of Vesuvius.My favorite book...........The buried city of Pompeii.

Although this is an overview book, there is so much here to recommend it to the artist. I do C&I for my historical group (SCA) and this is such a wonderful source!

This is one of the best books on illuminated manuscripts currently available. The book is hardcover, full color throughout, and many nice reproductions. There is a nice variety in the work shown and good commentary. If you get this at the discounted price, this is a hard book to beat in quantity and quality. Along with A History of Illuminated Manuscripts this is a must-have book.

What can I say? I have been researching this specific field now for the last five years, and rarely find such a magnificent reproduction as this! Excellent job on the colour balance, and many miniatures I have not seen in any other books. Well done.

Best "bang for the buck" period illumination book on the market. Every page is crammed with beautiful, clear color photos of ten centuries of period illumination styles. There are 'leaves' and 'hours' in there that I have never seen before. Best of all (and unlike other books I could name) it's affordable and within the reach of the true 'starving artist' (and it's about time).

What a marvellous collection of Illustrated Manuscripts. A couple of other reviewers stated that this was one of the best books of this kind ever published.I certainly have no dispute with them as it is the best I've seen.
Going through this book gives one the feeling of viewing the greatest illustrated books that were the domain of the rich and powerful from the 7th. Century to the 17th.Century. Unless you were of that class,you had little chance of ever seeing,touching and certainly no chance whatsoever of owning one of these books.
Until the Gutenberg press of the 1450's there were no printed books,which meant that any book had to be drawn and lettered printed by hand,taking years of painstaking and highly talented work.Hence,they were extremely expensive and available to the very few.Even someone who owned or had access to books like these,even they would be very lucky if they saw more than a few in their lifetime.In this book we get to see hundreds of the manuscripts from literally hundreds of these rare masterpieces.They come from all over Europe and from a span of roughly a thousand years.
It'as amazing to think that in the 14th.Century,it was possible to build massive Cathedrals;but a book like this for the masses was not even imaginable.

This is exactly the book I was looking for and wasn't sure existed. Even if I don't get back to Paris for years, I can still feel a little closer to its streets because of this guide. This little book can not serve as a introduction to Impressionist art, but to those who already love Impressionism, this is a delightful addition to that appeciation.

There are many books about Paris, many about the Impressionists, and several about Paris and the Impressionists. If you're obsessed with Paris and Impressionism, buy them all. However, if you're not willing to build a new wing for your library, or simply want a book you can actually take with you and use while you're in Paris, this is the one. It's a true gem.

If you love Paris and the Impressionists' work this is a must have. Taking the walking tours was the highlight of my last trip to the city of lights. Williams helps you see through 100 years of change into a different Paris.

This and a Metro map will take care of me for a week. A little about Paris, a little about the period, a little about the artists... "The Impressionists' Paris" is a learning experience, even for a student of impressionist art, and even if you're not planning a trip to Paris soon.

All but one of these 3 walks are on the right bank, which is otherwise somewhat impressionist-deprived since the good paintings moved from l'Orangerie to Musee d'Orsay. Combine Walk 1 with a visit to Orsay one day, then combine Walk 2 with an excursion to Giverny on another day.

Work the cafes into the rest of your visit to Paris. If you're into art and food, this book is a great companion to "The Historic Restaurants of Paris" by the same author.

Don't expect to find all of the locations intact, and there's the ever-present reality of construction and scaffolding. I hardly recognized the Pont de l'Europe from Caillebotte's painting, and Cafe de la Paix is closed for renovation (9/2002).

I'd love to meet this author sometime. She did this book like I would have (if I knew nearly as much as she). Each tour has a good map, and about 14-18 pages (each) of descriptions and pictures. Walking directions are in bold.

The book has nice color plates of selected paintings, matched loosely with period photos of Paris taken from old postcards, some with their 'timbres' quaintly intact. Lengthy captions add colorful trivia. She even finishes off the book with a tastefully written list of Paris cemeteries where the impressionists are buried.

Bon Voyage!

I think my students will love traveling in the footsteps of the impressionists. Seeing what the artists saw is worth a 1000 words in explaining they why of the subject painted.

Table of Contents
Acknowledgments v
Foreword vii
Introduction to Europe 1
The LDS Church Records 9
Jewish Records 19
Albania 31
Andorra 32
Austria 33
Belarus 48
Belgium 50
Bosnia and Herzegovina 58
Bulgaria 60
Croatia 63
Cyprus 66
The Czech Republic 68
Denmark 78
Estonia 88
Finland 90
France 98
Germany 111
Greece 158
Herzegovina (see also Bosnia and Herzegovina) 161
Hungary 162
Iceland 172
Italy 176
Kosovo (see Yugoslavia)
Latvia 185
Liechtenstein 188
Lithuania 190
Luxembourg 192
Macedonia 194
Malta 196
Moldova 198
Monaco 199
Montenegro (see Yugoslavia)
The Netherlands (Holland) 201
Norway 220
Poland 230
Portugal 240
Romania 247
Russia 251
San Marino 257
Serbia (see Yugoslavia)
Slovakia 258
Slovenia 262
Spain 264
Sweden 273
Switzerland 281
Ukraine 292
Vojvodina (see Yogoslavia)
Yugoslavia 294
Bibliography 303
Genealogical Societies and Web Sites 309
Index 313

This is the best all around book on European Genealogy. The chapter on Italy is very complete and up to date.

Flavio Andreatta, President
The Italian Genealogy and Heraldry Society of Canada

Unless your ancestors walked the land bridge 10000 years ago, you will want this book to learn how you got here. In addition to learning details about emigrating from your particular homeland, you can find out about some European history in general terms that you may have missed in college. Although written before the breakup of the USSR, the section dealing with the former soviet republics gives a hint as to the chances of success you may expect if that was your home. Details such as the data in Canada from the Russian consul, and the small number of embarkation points in European ports should prove to be invaluable as you start your search.

No genealogist should be without this book.

Now in a completely revised, updated, and expanded fourth edition, Angus Baxter's In Search Of Your European Roots continues to be the premier guide for the novice genealogist seeking trace ancestors in any and every country throughout Europe. The location of each country's national and municipal archives is recorded, in addition to the location of church records, census returns, the system of civil registrations of births, marriages, and deaths, along with pertinent recommendations on finding and using such records as foundling books, orphans' lists, certificates of domicile, guild records, internal passports, confirmation records, and vaccination lists. Here are a highly recommended wealth of telephone numbers, email addresses, fax numbers, and website addresses for most of the major European archives and genealogically relevant organizations. Of special note in this new edition is the attention paid to the changes brought about by German reunification, the break-up of the Soviet Union, and the dismemberments of Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia into smaller political states.

This book provides excellent genealogical resources to help you find your European ancestors from Portugal to Greece.

Baxter explains some of the considerations that are unique to each country. For example, France has a '100 years law' that limits the information that you can access if an individual's record is within the last 100 years. In Italy, there is a record called the Certificate of Family Genealogy (Certificato dello Stato di Famiglia) that can be especially useful. Research in Scandinavian countries, Wales and some areas of the Netherlands and Germany can be difficult because the surnames often changed with each generation.

Some countries receive more or less coverage in this book. For Albania, where most of the church records have been destroyed, there is just a short history. For other countries, there are lists of records, major family names, archives with addresses that you can write to, and information about how records are kept in that country. Often dates are provided indicating when the country first began census and/or church records.

Overall, this book has great details!

This book is one of the must have's! Are you are looking for the real info on the Eastern Fornt from the German perspective? Well - this is it! You wont be able to put it down, after you do you will reach for the next one! First hand accounts and an insight into the personalities of some of the Wehrmacht's best during WW2.

Great insight to the hardships faced by the common soldier who sill went on to perform outstanding acts of bravery

Both my husband and my son are military history enthusiasts and I bought this book as a gift for them. It has turned out to be even better than I expected. My husband can't put it down and my son keeps asking him to read it to him.

My husband has read a lot of different military history books and he is very critical of most written works because they are not factual enough or don't contain enough interesting information. This book has actually been very interesting and informative to him and he has asked me to look into getting other books in this series.

I highly recommend it to anyone that is interested in WWII.

Mr. Kurowski has used his experience as a reporter in the German army during World War II to write a series of books that tell the history of the war from the German individuals point of view.

This book is a set of eight mini-biographies of German Infantry soldiers. Most of them fought through the entire war and surprisingly most of them survived the war, few without wounds. These are not stories of high ranking officers, but of ordinary soldiers of rather low rank who did their job very, very well. They fought in all the theaters of war from freezing in Russia to burning up in Africa.

I am sure that there were men like these in all armies, but these men happened to be German. We can only be happey that they didn't have a whole lot more men like these.

This is an outstanding book describing the experience of eight first person accounts of German soldiers who earned their nation's highest award, their equivalent of the Medal of Honor, the Knight's Cross, and is highly recommended. What makes this book unique is that the accounts cover multiple years with campaigns spanning from 1939 to 1945.

There are very few US WW2 veterans that have a similar amount of experience. There are a handful of US veterans who survived through the campaigns and battles from 1943 to 1945 in the European theatre and fewer in the Pacific theatre from 1942-1945.

The experience of these eight German soldiers who fought on multiple fronts for so many years is quite remarkable as they fought against armies that did not lose their combat strength throughout the years.

What makes this book unique is that it provides a chronological history of the first person experiences of those soldiers who fought in the many campaigns and earned their country's highest military award, sometimes for a second and third time and is not based on one specific battle.

If one also reads Panzer Aces 1 & 2, some of the events and persons involved will coincide with this book. Many history books provide a general overview, often a mere sentence in passing, of an engagement that was part of a larger battle. This book provides the details of the difficult fighting experienced by those who fought and survived.

My most recent purchases of the Rome Inside-Out city guides represent a replacement for one I literally wore out after three trips and constant use, as well as two for gifts for our two grandchildren who will be traveling with us. These guides are easy to use and contain an amazing amount of information in a packet about the size of a purse-size pocket calendar.

Once you travel with these guides, you will never let them go! I have used them in 3 cities in the US and 5 abroad and they have never let me down. You will not be sorry - best dollar value around too!

We used this book on our recent trip to Rome and really enjoyed it. It is a great size and shape...fits in pockets and purses. The maps are great too...I love the way everything folds up. The only thing that would make this book better would be a detailed map of the local metro system.

I recently visited Italy and I purchased an Inside Out book for each of the locations I was visiting (Rome, Florence, and Venice) and these books are life savers. The maps are incredibly convenient and easy to use and the listing of what to do is a great concise overview of the main sites in Rome. The way the maps pop out is seriously cool and the books are small enough that they can fit in a large pocket (like on cargo pants) or a purse. The compass ensures you always know where you are going an the pen was extremely helpful for making notes (there is a section in the back for notes).

If you want a very detailed travel guide, this book probably isn't for you, but this is the perfect book for getting a great overview of the sites, some good restaurants and some of the best hotels. I recommend this book to take around with you as you are site-seeing as a supplement to that big heavy travel book you might be thinking of.

I just got back from a trip to Italy and I purchased an Inside Out book for each of the locations I was visiting (Rome, Florence, and Venice) and these books are life savers. The maps are incredibly convenient and easy to use and the listing of what to do is a great concise overview of the main sites in Rome. The way the maps pop out is seriously cool and the books are small enough that they can fit in a large pocket (like on cargo pants) or a purse. The compass ensures you always know where you are going an the pen was extremely helpful for making notes (there is a section in the back for notes).

If you want a very detailed travel guide, this book probably isn't for you, but this is the perfect book for getting a great overview of the sites, some good restaurants and some of the best hotels. I recommend this book to take around with you as you are site-seeing as a supplement to that big heavy travel book you might be thinking of.

I knew the author personally. I took a Holocaust course from Dr. Abzug while at the University of Texas. I asked him questions about the construction of the book. Placing key photographs right after controversial passages in the book. It was done for effect, and had a profound effect on me. This is a must read book for anyone interested in the Holocaust as well as those interested in how such a event could happen. More than anything else the book showed me how fragile we are as human beings, and that when inudated with violence and horror, how we can become indifferent to it.

This book attempts to chronicle the absolute horror that accompanied the discovery of Nazi concentration/slave labor/extermination/death camps at the end of World War II.

The story is primarily told from the perspective of the Americans, from GIs to General Eisenhower, as well as journalists and others, who came upon the camps, what they saw, and how they reacted.

There are separate chapters on the Ohrdurf & Norhausen, Buchenwald, Dachau, and Mauthausen camps, along with a chapter covering the discovery of numerous smaller camps. A brief history and background of the camps are also covered in these chapters. Interspersed with the text are numerous photos of the discoveries at the camps.

Also included are introductory chapters trying to assess America's knowledge of these camps prior to their discovery and closing chapters on the aftermath of the camps on the discoverers, the inmates, the Germans, and the world, and an attempt to make sense somehow of it all.

This is a somber book. The photographs (piles of corpses, burned bodies, humans reduced to skin and bones) and descriptions of what was found in the camps (the smells, the sights, the sounds) are not for the squeamish. Nonetheless, it is a must read for anyone trying to gain some sense (if indeed, any can be found) of what was the Final Solution for the Jewish people as well as the horrific mistreatment of other groups (Gypsies, Communists, criminals, etc.) that the Nazis deemed undesirable.

this book is shocking but true! the details are very graphic and the pictures even more so. the author has done his research--i took a class from him on the subject. really powerful and important reading for everyone to understand the horror of the holocaust and work to ensure that such a thing never happens again. leaves you with a whole new perspective on the nature of evil and the potential power of authority and those in it.

This was an interesting view of the horrors of the holocaust. I think there is better works that detail out what happened in the camps, but this book really gives you the insight into what it was like to roll through the gates of the camp in an American jeep. You almost can feel the chain of emotions the solders go through: confusion, anger, pity, and sadness. This must also be in some small part what the current American solders see in Afghanistan with millions starving. This is a well-written, very unique look at the topic and is well worth the price. You will "feel" this book for a long time after you have finished it.

I especially liked the special viewpoint of the book, that is the discovery of the camps through the eyes of American G.I.s

We purchased this a couple months before our trip to Italy. It was a great resource which provided all the insight we needed to get the most out of our trip and provide us with the historial background of the area to get maximum appreciation of our sightseeing.

Simply put....., all of the Insight Books that I have purchased prior to travel have been outstanding.......the only one's I will buy....., great information and lots of photos to go with the info make it an excellent product!

Insight guides always have fabulous photographs and background information that will help you enjoy your trip even more. This book is just such a gem. I recommend it highly for an educational experience. If you want to know all the cheap places to eat get another book!

It would be a pity for anyone to travel to Italy - or any other country - without having a handy informative resource on the rich history and culture of the country.

If your travelling style involves much more than racing through monuments and ticking off the standard "must see" list, because you seek to more deeply understand the present by looking at the past, this might be the perfect handy companion to complement a more practical travel guidebook.

More than one-quarter of the 400-plus pages are devoted to the history of Italy, with well written sections in Ancient Rome, the Renaissance, and the emergence of the modern Italian state in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. There are also superb featured sections on topics such as the Mafia, Italian fashion, and Italian cinema. These discussions are very compact. While not substituting for in-depth analysis on these topics, they constitute an excellent survey of different phases of contemporary and ancient history of Italy.

These are the main strengths of this book. It is a wonderful resource to consult while travelling after you have visited a monument, or as you reflect on the rich series of events and forces which have shaped the arts, political life, and institutions of this country.

Travellers who mainly want a helpful guide on planning travel to Italy and practical information such as museum visiting hours, best driving routes, where to find the best gelattos, etc. will find other travel guides more complete on these topics. You may think about using this book as a complement to one of these more practical guides.

I agree with everything the prior reviewer wrote.

I think I bought this in the late 1990s at an roadside Autogrill in Italy. It is essential to find those small villages and nooks and crannies when driving, especially because the signage in the country is smaller and arrives and vanishes much more quickly than we are used to in the States.

Like other books in the Travelers Tales series - this book gives excellent insight into the Irish way of life and provides excellent reading (I am slightly biased, having written one of the short pieces that is included - titled Cycling to Dun Aengus). The overall quality of the book is excellent and the descriptions pull you right into the landscape and geography of Ireland - from sitting in smoky pubs to driving past weather beaten coasts. Some of these pieces are also hilarious. Highly recommended not only as a prerequisite to a visit - but for a great read. TJLMullen@cs.com

This book consists of a wide variety of stories from the humourous to the profound to the historical. There are stories that you want to sit down with a friend and read it to them: specically, "A Pub Fairy Tale" by Pamela Ramsey tells of a visit to an Irish pub by the author who wanted to take in the "ambiance" of the music and dancing. She hoped that she would be asked to dance, but as closing time drew near, her hopes seemed slim. Then an energetic old gentleman finally asked her, and she describes it this way: "I could feel the other dancers watching us, nodding, laughing, giving us encouragement, but the old man and I had eyes only for each other. We were two odd strangers caught in a moment of tenderness. A moment of magic. I was Cinderella, the belle of the ball, dancing with my Prince - an old, almost-blind man, wearing a black beret." Beautiful. Another story tells of the estrangement of a son and his father when he married outside the faith, and how, when the father died, a reconciliation of sorts was established with his brother with they go hiking on the hills where there father had hiked with them, and how he came to understand his father's secret strength and connection with the isle: "Walking the Kerry Way", by Tim O'Reilly. This brief description of Mr. O'Reilly's story does it a gross injustice, because there is a depth of feeling that only the author can convey. The brief biographical descriptions at the end of each story are informative and to the point. At the end of the book, there is an extensive, "The Next Step" which includes a number of websites, and a good bibliography. The book is well put together, and succeeds very well in conveying "true stories of life on the emerald isle."

I'm on my way to Ireland in a few days. This is just a note to say that I found this book on Ireland, to my surprise as so many nice things can be, enormously sensitive and moving and classy. Classy because the type style, the paper stock, and the interior arrangement of the stories and back-of-the-book tips and advice show a lot of editorial thought, being so well done. I was deeply moved by the selection of the tales, each its own chapter, and I definitely felt a sense of coming to know Ireland in a way no other book I could buy would bring me. Lots of laughter and tears and thoughts arriving as I stared out a window, enveloping the mood of a story I'd just finished. They were wonderfully written for me, to my standards, which are impossibly high -- I admire the best, even if I can't write at that level -- and overall I sensed that the editing was careful, thoughtful. There'd been plenty of work put into this volume. The end of the book with all the tips was very enjoyable, and I've read it through twice so far as I sense it will all come true for me, all prove to be good advice, on this, my first trip to Ireland.

I am giving one less star than the other commentators here not out of contrariness but simply to let readers know of the very uneven quality of the 44 entries, most of which are excerpts from longer works by established writers, although a minority appear to be written for this anthology. Not to say that the latter suffer necessarily; the best essay in here, and the only one that examines the other side of the tourist's encounter, is Janine Jones' "Tea With Mr. Curtain." Jones ponders what to do when the more unsavory side of a revered local man is revealed to apparently only her "privileged" view as a visitor. She opts for reticence rather than revealing his secret side to the rest of the village that she will soon leave but he never will.

The familiar authors mingle with the unknown, and to the editors' credit, they offset their knowingly but fulsomely lavish encomium of the oul' sod's charm prefacing this collection with a final section highlighting the shadowy scandals of an Ireland beyond the postcard views too often limiting many of the writers here included. The best sections are this last portion, for its frankness, and the beginning that in its "Essence of Ireland" does set out neatly such observant scenes as that of a kayaker, Brian Wilson, who finds his moored craft suddenly whisked away under the local Conamara customs of flotsam and jetsam belonging to those who live by the sea's bounty; Rosemary Mahoney's look (from her excellent "Whoredom in Kimmage: Irish Women Coming of Age") at how the Legion of Mary's volunteers work in inner-city Dublin; David Blaker's decision to call himself a Jew when hitching rides in the North to avoid uneasy conversations; and David W. McFadden's meeting with an amateur archeologist in the Tipperary town of Cahir. The second section is most disappointing: the contributors are either too blase or mundane about their activities, or what they report matters little to engage the imagination of the reader.

Valuable essays in part three about destinations are those of Katharine Scherman on Skellig Micheal; poitin-making by John McLaughlin; Thomas Flanagan on the real Mayo that inspired his "Year of the French" novel; and Jonathan Harrington's brief but moving tale of finding and meeting distant relatives one uncomfortable night. In the last section, Scott Anderson exposes the racketeering and an even more dangerous climate of intimidation that because of its underground impact on both sides of the sectarian divide has followed the decline in paramilitary violence; Martin Dillon gives a literally awful anecdote from his "God and the Gun" about a priest forced to hear the confession of a man the IRA is about to execute; Fintan O'Toole offers a typically nuanced examination of the Bishop Casey-Annie Murphy scandal.

The listings at the back, with succinct advice for tourists, are helpful and cogent, if by now of course dated a bit. The bibliography is well-chosen. Finally, sidebars in the text give additional observations from other texts, and these snippets are placed often to play off the longer essays in nimble fashion.

I really enjoyed this book on Travler's tales from Ireland. It had some great stories. You really got to know about the country, and it's people from reading this. I highly recommend it.

A pleasure to read a book that, as with the original disputants who comprise the subjects of the five chapters, addresses the general public in clear, spirited, and engaging fashion. While the content's aimed at an academic reader, the prose flows more smoothly, and the author remains aware of the need for a personal perspective that keeps her in control of the mass of material she sifts through and organizes in support of the often dramatic, if self-consciously so, performers on the stages and streets of Dublin almost a century ago. Rather than (and Prof. McD acknowledges in her preface that she labored not to use "ludic") become embroiled in abstruse jargon and faddish theory, McDiarmid takes on the early debates that characterized cultural nationalist contentions that served as a synecdoche for the larger issues of Irish Ireland.

These are covered in five thematic sections about public spats and private correspondence, and these do overlap slightly: Hugh Lane's bequeathed 39 paintings, Shaw's "The Shewing of Blanco Posnet" with Lady Gregory & GBS for the Abbey Theatre squaring off against Dublin Castle, Fr. O'Hickey's defense of compulsory Irish, the "Dublin kiddies" vs. the socialists and philanthropists, and the "afterlife" which Roger Casement's diaries with their homosexual content represented for later 20c Irish discussion of sexuality and rebellion. Unlike later spectacles that entered the Irish arena, these riled up not only academics and writers, but the common people. It's a telling sign of the retreat from the "agora" in the past century that shows how willing many people are to leave to the intellectuals and literati what once might have been the dispute of many a dinner table-- think of the contention over Parnell in Joyce's "Portrait."

The details of the book have been previewed on this site and by earlier respondents. Many illustrations, endnotes, and explanations carry along the text in more brisk fashion than one might expect from a professor. I might add that the notes document generously the assistance from many who assisted McDiarmid in her years of research. The book may betray a bit of the assembly from disparate pieces that many collections do when gathered from earlier talks and articles, but the introduction and conclusion tie together the threads efficiently. There's even a well-chosen Irish-language proverb that begins each chapter cleverly. Such details show the author's own personality in a study that abounds in spirited, strong-willed, and stubborn smart meetings and maulings of the minds.

I enjoyed Lucy McDiarmid's The Irish Art of Controversy on many levels. It helps me get into the spirit of several of W B Yeats's poems and, more importantly, reminds us all of the value of understanding our pervasive controversies. It is very educational to see how they operate over time. She's done us all a wonderful service through her lucid explanations of key controversies present in Ireland's successful struggle to achieve a national identity. If you are interested in Yeats, Ireland, or controversy this book is a must.

Here is the perfect book for anyone who likes cultural history, politics, or Ireland. I couldn't put it down; it is lots of fun to read-scholarly but very accessible, written with humor and grace. If you want a lively, detailed account of the intellectual and cultural brawls taking place in Ireland at the turn of the 20th century, this is THE book.
A.N. Oakes

I'll read anything about George Bernard Shaw, so when I saw his name on the back cover of this book, I bought it, even though I'd never heard of the incident it mentioned. I wound up enjoying EVERY chapter -- it was like going back to an earlier time and meeting all the most colorful people in a small, tightly knit community. Life at the turn of the 19th century into the 20th century seems to surround you as you read. This is a fascinating book for anyone who enjoys experiencing the rich texture of another era, described with humor and sympathy.

The Irish Art of Controversy provides a wonderfully vivid look at the intimacies of Irish politics by Lucy McDiarmid. With her usual wit and fastidious scholarship, she explains how public controversy determined what it meant to be Irish in the early 20th century. She evokes an extraordinary series of dramas played out by opposing factions on such issues as religion, sex, class values, the labor movement, censorship and civil rights. Issues that shaped the coming revollution and the nature of Irish government. In contrast to the romantic concept of recovering the poor old woman's four green fields, McDiarmid demonstrates how hotly contested was the question of what should be planted in those fields.

During the strike of some 25,000 Dublin workers in l9l3, for exxample, a violent tug of war developed between Catholic clergy and labor sympathizers attempting to place starving children temporarily in the homes of English workers. The clergy largely defeated this plan by accusing Irish mothers of endangering the faith of their children by allowing them to be "kidnapped" by English Protestants, socialists and feminists. Archbishop Walsh proclaimed that "the Irish people would rather their children perish by the ditches than that they should be exposed to the risk of being perverted in their religion." Under such pressure, it is not surprising that of some 300 children initially enrolled, only 18 reached England. This episode reveals the unfortunate bigotry of the clergy, but also identifies cultural memories and beliefs (souperism, fairy abduction) that subconsciously, or otherwise, intensified the fears of Catholic parents.

An equally fierce and lasting controversy emerged over Roger Casement. On trial for treason in the aftermath of the l9l6 Rising, he was fatally compromised by discovery of the so-called Black Diaries containing graphic descriptions of homoerotic encounters. Both Irish and English opinion turned against him despite his patriotism and the humanitarian work for which he had been knighted. Casement was hanged, and his remains were not returned to Ireland until 1965. Even then, there was consideraable uneasiness about enshrining a gay man in the pantheon of Irish heroes. With the growing secularization of Ireland, however, Casement became a pivotal figure in open debate about sexualities and civil rights. In fact, as McDiarmid demonstrates, it was the transgressive example of Casement that allowed such debate to be made public.

In sum, an excellent book. A pleasure to read.