Ireland Books

This book seeks to create an understanding of how the 20th century in Europe could create the contradictions of civilization and barbarity. The barbarity comes in the forms of three horrible conflicts. The two world wars and the cold wars are assessed very well here along with their contributing factors. European culture represents the civilization and is conducted with various discussions of literature, art and science. This really would make a wonderful textbook for any course on European history in the 20th century or just a fun read for those who are interested in the subject. It provides a fresh perspective on many of the key features of Europe in the 20th century and its very well cited. If you want to get a sense of how Europe evolved over the course of the 20th century this is a great book to use.

I found Civilization and Barbarity to be an enormously stimulating book. Jackson writes with a rare sense of balance, never falling into cliche or onesided judgments. One senses that every word and phrase is deeply considered and arrived at through profound and long thought and experience. Not without reason is Jackson the author, among other studies, of the classic monograph, The Spanish Republic and Civil War: 1931-1939, published by Princeton University Press in 1965.

For anyone with Irish or Scottish ancestry, and interested in the depth of clan and family relationships, I highly recommend this small volume. Brief, succinct, and to-the-point, it steers clear of some of the mythological baggage that often shows up in this arena.

What pleasure from this book! I live in USA and meet lots of people with Scottish or Irish backgrounds. They are just thrilled to read about their heritage. Personally, I have always wondered about my own surname - now the mystery has been solved. You know, it's a real gift to discover your roots!

These photographs will take your breath away. The landscapes are incredibly beautiful, and the quality of the images is of the highest caliber. Ya gotta love this planet...

The photographs are so gorgious and real that they make you feel like you are right there. From the cliffs to the sandy beaches and from the light houses to the huge watery rocks make this book extremely unforgettable.

This is a fine wicked knowledgeable book, and entirely readable, especially the beginning, which can be read aloud straight through without losing you your audience.

I first met =A Colder Eye= when I was one of the editors of a literary criticism reference series. We were proceeding alphabetically, which meant that when we hit "O" we got half the Irish writers in one go, also alphabetic near neighbors like Mary Lavin. I found =A Colder Eye= on the shelf at Columbia University's main library, and went flipping through its index to see whether it had substantial sections on the authors I was researching. What I found was that all its index listings for authors had epithets attached: "O'Casey, Sean," it said, "ventriloquist."

"?", I thought, and checked another.

"O'Nolan, Brian," it said, "logician."

"Right," said I, and put the book on my small and extremely selective "books to be checked out" stack. As I knew only too well after reading several small mountain ranges of literary criticism and rejecting most of it, a critic who can joke about his subject, and get it right, is to be cherished. Hugh Kenner knows his stuff.

(It's one of the two great funny indices in English literature, the other being of course the index to =The Spotted Owl=; but leave that for another day.)

You would be well rewarded for buying =A Colder Eye= in hardcover if you did nothing more than read the part about the charming unreliability of Irish recollections; and allow me to say that the ghost of Brian O'Nolan should be both ashamed and proud of himself for perpetrating the interview with James Joyce Senior.

There's nothing else so good on its subject as this book. Enough. Go buy it now.

(And if you like it? Hunt up a copy of Walter Bryan's (that is, Walt Willis's) =The Improbable Irish=. If you like both, you may need to acquaint yourself with the works of Brian O'Nolan. But start with Hugh Kenner.)

A deliciously funny and engaging look at the personalities and history behind Irish literature in a tumultuous time. The care and humor with which Kenner treats the subject of Yeats is just beautiful. Several times I laughed out loud while reading it on public mass transit, much to the dismay and confusion of my fellow riders, but I just couldn't help it. I can hardly wait to read Kenner's other works (and I wish I'd discovered him a long time ago).

I became fascinated with the life of Columba many years ago and found this book in paperback in the bookshop of the Iona Community on the Isle of Iona in 1993. It is comprehensive and objective. It gives a fair portrait of the man and an engaging overview of the times he lived in. It is the best writing that has been done on Comumba and it is history of the highest order.

Working on a graduate level paper, I found this book the most helpful of all of my secondary resources concerning St. Columba of Iona. I searched out this book because so many of the other authors I was reading made reference to Finlay on several occasions. Of all biographical materials out there on Columba, I found this to be the most comprehensive and accessible.

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.