Ireland Books

There are precious few books on the history of gardening and landscape design in Ireland. Finola O'Kane's book is a considerable development in rectifying this. Her book covers several large and two smaller landscapes developed around Dublin in the eighteenth century by wealthy men and women of the largely Protestant Ascendancy. She looks at the economic and horticultural background to the gardens and estates and describes the social, aesthetic and political influences on their designers and owners. The author specifically covers the "designing women" such as Emily, Duchess of Leinster, and her sister Louisa Connolly, who were so important in the creation of these landscapes. The hydraulics and engineering, the sources of the plants (including new exotics from America) and what drove the designers and for what purpose are very well covered. The separate landscapes and their designers are fascinatingly linked together. The book is lavishly and beautifully illustrated with contemporary and modern pictures, maps, plans and designs. It is extremely well researched (as evidenced by the extensive footnotes and appendices), with a good index and excellent bibliography. This is a very readable, well-written book, which is also an important contribution, not only to the study of Irish heritage, but to that of Europe generally.

Landscape Design In Eighteenth-Century Ireland: Mixing Foreign Trees With The Natives is a fascinating, in-depth study of the eighteenth-century landscapes around Dublin and the gardens of the region, as well as the political, monetary, and aesthetic appreciation influences that led their owners to create them. Chapters focus especially upon Robert Molesworth's lanscape of Breckdenston, the landscape of Castletown House, Carton Demesne's work which introduced foreign trees, and the school at Frescati. Part environmental history, part narrative of the lives and decisions of wealthy individuals, part studious assessment of the ambitious large-scale projects that changed the nature of the countryside, Landscape Design In Eighteenth-Century Ireland is an absorbing and detailed scrutiny. Illustrated throughout with black-and-white as well as color images, paintings, diagrams and photographs, Landscape Design in Eighteenth-Century Ireland is virtually unique in its theme of discussion yet delves into its subject matter with such depth as to eclipse rival attempts.

I found the first chapter of this book rather tedious. It is about the teaching of Latin in schools and universities, and shows, by way of innumerable examples (a trait of the book as a whole - the author's range of research is truly amazing), the dominance that Latin had in the secondary school syllabus even for a decade or so after the end of the Second World War. In the 16th century, where this book begins, teaching was often done in Latin; at Oxford a statute of 1636 even required students to converse with each other in Latin, and in Prussian schools Latin was still spoken between pupils and between them and their teachers in the middle of the 19th century. Oxford and Cambridge required Latin as a condition for entry until the 1960s and 1970s, and therefore many schools had perforce to continue teaching it. (In a later entertaining section we learn how the young would compensate for the tedium of their instruction by inventing skits - sometimes scabrous ones - on the language.) But from the 18th century onwards teaching in the vernacular made more and more headway; and this, too, is illustrated with many examples. What is completely missing in this chapter is an account of the arguments in defence and (except for one or to examples) in opposition to compulsory Latin, or indeed of the sociological forces that were at play on both sides. For that kind of analysis we have to wait till Part III, the last two-fifths of the book. Before we get there, we are given a devastating picture of how, right back to at least the 17th century, only a very small proportion of pupils benefitted from - let alone enjoyed - their studies in Latin: the great majority, after 10 or more years of study, could scarcely understand a Latin text.

It is odd that the Latin of the Catholic Church should be the subject of only the second chapter; for surely the commanding position of Latin has its origin in the Church. This chapter is much better, for it gives explanations together with the exposition. The Catholic Church was suspicious of lay people being able to read the scriptures for themselves and interpreting it in a `heretical' sense; and it did its best to oppose translations into the vernacular; and though it accepted sermons in the vernacular and eventually even sanctioned translations of the scriptures, it insisted until Vatican II in 1963 that the liturgy must be in a language that even some of the lower clergy often mouthed without really understanding it. (Waquet does not mention the origin of the words `hocus pocus' - which is what laymen heard when the words `hoc est corpus meum' were gabbled by the clergy during the `magical' transformation of the wafer into the body of Christ.) The Catholic Church believed that a language which was no longer changing was appropriate for liturgies that expressed unchanging truths and for uniting Catholics all over the world.

The fact that Latin was read all over the world also made it for a long time the language of scientists, or indeed of any scholarly text that hoped for international distribution. Many works, originally written in the vernacular, were translated for this purpose into Latin. Even today, new words used in medicine are being concocted in Latin; Linnaeus' Latin or Latinized botanical descriptions are still in use, as are the symbols for elements in chemistry. In the multilingual Habsburg Empire Latin was widely used in administration (and in Hungarian Diet as the language of debate until 1840). The Treaty of Rastadt in 1714 was the first to be written in French; but until then Latin was the language of international treaties and frequently of diplomatic correspondence. However, when people spoke to each other in Latin, they often could hardly understand each other because each country, and often each region, pronounced Latin (even Church Latin) quite differently. (When I was at prep school myself, I was taught to pronounce `veni, vidi, vici' like `veenigh, veedigh, vighkigh', and had to unlearn this at later stages of my education.)

In Part III we at last come to the barrage of fiercely maintained arguments in favour of compulsory Latin: through Latin grammar one gets a better understanding of vernacular grammar; its study is a unique mental discipline in logic and its difficulties are good for the soul; it connects you with the loftiest part of the European inheritance; the moral qualities it conveys stand in contrast to the materialism taught by the sciences; some even claimed that it was a defence against Marxism as well as against Americanization; a Tsarist minister of education praised it for `inhibit[ing] the formation of independent opinions'.

And of course the knowledge of Latin was associated with class, status and power. In England successful entrepreneurs who had had no Latin and were not `gentlemen' would send their children to schools where they were taught the classics and so would become gentlemen. On the continent, the children of the poor were often deliberately kept away from Latin lest it encourage them to aspirations beyond their station. The medical and legal professions often used Latinity to bemuse and intimidate the laity. Latin was also used euphemistically to avoid the use of `coarse' and embarrassing vernacular words, usually to protect the modesty of women, only a tiny proportion of whom knew any Latin at all.

It is easy to understand why the modern world has abandoned Latin as any kind of staple. It is perhaps a miracle is that it survived as a staple for as long as it did; its defenders often went to quite absurd lengths; but this book explains what gave it its long-lasting sway. Although much of the material in it is very repetitive, it is very readable (and well translated by John Howe), and often entertaining.

This is a thought provoking book about the teaching of Latin in traditional, mostly European, educational systems from the 16th through 20th centuries. The author cites numerous examples of the way in which the prestige of knowing or being forced to learn Latin shaped the educational process as well the sometimes unwilling students who needed to acquire a fair amount of Latin in order to be full participants in this "empire." Highly interesting as a social/linguistic history in its own right,much of what Waquet describes could also be applied to any number of other class/educational factors that seemingly separate those who are inside or outside the system. No Latin ("dead language") basher, the author actually provides examples for the continued utilty of the study of Latin, albeit in a more specialized mode than those who wish to restore the classics to a place of prominince might wish. Highly readable for a scholarly book of this sort.

As the XVIII century advanced, the Latin language tended increasingly to decline in favour of the French, which reigned for the whole XIX century, before itself meeting competition from English.

In a sense it was the end of an era, a long late summer appropriately marked by the French revolution, the Napoleonic wars and the ensuing spreading of nationalisms. The "death" of Latin was more a kind of slow fading away: while it was increasingly superseded by French in the Republic of Letters and in the international diplomacy, it knew his last melancholy bright days with the philological studies in the German universities and the creation of Gymnasium: dissected, revered and enshrined it was no more than the cadaver of that great sovereign who ruled the European continent for so many centuries.

Universal language par excellence, Latin never ceased to be used in Europe even after the fall of the Roman Empire and the spreading of the new national languages. But in the meanwhile its use had changed substantially: from everyday language, increasingly to universal language in the double role of "sacred" language (for liturgy and Scriptures) and language of power and diplomacy. Then with Renaissance it finds a new role as language of culture: it is a second spring, because it becomes the supranational official language of the humanism first, and then of the so called Republic of Letters. Decline is only slowed none the less. Parallel to these roles, others are less obvious: aristocratic language, with its power of exclusion, the power to "say and conceal" and its obvious immediate uselessness that can become a mark of distinction for a proto-leisure class (Veblen).

"Latin or the Empire of a Sign. From the XVI to the XX century" is an outstanding essay on the evolution and role of this language in the European culture.
Well written, in a lively and colloquial style, sprinkled with examples, citations and anecdotes, it successfully captures the attention of the reader.
Certainly, the theme is very specific and targeted to an readership interested in the development of European culture and in Greco-Latin philology, none the less the writer has been able to arrange a "reader-friendly" text: all Latin citations are translated, every theme is carefully expressed in a way that also uninitiated can fully understand.

I found this book almost by chance: a few years ago had read a very flattering review of it, but as often happens, I forgot and reading did not follow. This is a study that springs from a former essay written by Francoise Waquet with Hans Bots: "La République des Lettres" (unfortunately still not translated into English), of which Latin was the common jargon.

So why Latin could be such an alluring theme?
Well, because it was a common primeval language, a common mark in the identity of a culture before the Babel-like fragmentation of the Romantic period.
By looking at the story of the decadence of Latin, the development of the Continental culture can be understood more clearly: the decision of Louis XIV to favor a national literary language and the French great literary blooming (the age of Racine, Molière, Pascal,...) that precede the spread of French as common language of the European Enlightenment, the rise of bourgeoisie and the French Revolution, up to Vatican II Council in the XX century. But still in the XVII century Spinoza, by family and culture Ladino and Dutch-speaking , had to learn Latin to compose his treaties - and we can guess he did speak and write Latin with the Great Condé, with Leibniz and Oldenburg.
So first sacred language of religion and priesthood, then universal language for the Renaissance savants, diplomatic jargon in the European court and common idiom of the European cultural space, increasingly threatened by new national ambitions: the French decision to use national language for diplomatic treaties (to mark the national grandeur) and the development of true national cultures favored by the rise of a new middle class.

Mme Waquet is neutral in presenting the argument: she is neither against Latin nor nostalgic of the Latin golden age: she carefully gives voice to all parties in a well balanced and very convincing portrait. Most of the chapters actually deal with the pedagogic means used to learn Latin, and the contrabanded "virtues" of the fluency in that language.
Nevertheless sometimes the books presents passages of a great evocative force: the title in the first place with its suggestive "Empire of a Sign", the chapters dealing with the French Restoration (the "signe Européen" of Joseph the Maistre, Chateaubriand,...) up to scattered citations. One especially got my attention, and truly deserves to be fully cited:

"The writer Marie Noel, who regarded herself as "ignorant" ("I know no more Latin than my mother, my grandmother and their servants"), gives an admirable description of this experience which was certainly not hers alone: «The words, many times repeated, of Veni Creator, Miserere, De Profundis, Magnificat, Te Deum and all the others had become within us our family treasure». Her "Notes intimes" give a clear impression of what it was like to have contact with a language that - apart from everything else - was neither read nor-spoken, but sung, and that was therefore inseparable from its musical coating: «The little girl of Auxerre will begin ... on hearing Christmas carols, the moving monody of the Stabat, . . . to become aware of the power of words». Words, moreover, that resounded in the nave of a cathedral whose rich decor accentuated the impression they made.
«I had just turned nine, my grandmother took me with her. For me it the entrance to a sublime world, outside the other one, a world in which god and men exchanged unprecedented words that had no meaning in other countries. On the evening of All Saints' Day, at six o'clock, the two of us made our way into the great Night of the Cathedral which at that hour, under its prodigious vaults, had neither beginning nor end... In the tower the knell tolled... that admirable knell of Auxerre Cathedral, a tragic group of deep bells that burst suddenly into sobbing - five or six heartbreaking notes - and then fell back into silence from which, after a few minutes of anguish, they would break out once more in sombre tears drawn from some unknowable well of suffering and fear... Nevertheless, we sang along with the priests! »" (pag.102)

I did read this book because of my passion for the history of the European culture and also because of my old studies in Greco-Latin philology.
This book is unique in his genre, and while I strongly recommend it, it is not easy to suggest other books on the same theme. Nonetheless, I think that these titles could be excellent associates:
- "The Republic of Letters. A cultural History of the French Enlightenment" by Dena Goodman. Very interesting and well written, but uneven in the result, and sometimes with a too marked militant feminist approach (yet the author doesn't seem to appreciate the fact that Enlightenment was the first period in which women had a true relevant cultural role).
- "The Age of Conversation" by Benedetta Craveri - a must read for sure! Gripping like a novel and hugely learned, this is the story of the development of that culture of bonne manieres, intelligent conversation, informal culture and tact that we now tend to associate with Enlightenment and the last years of the Ancien Regime.
- "The Renaissance Bazaar. From the silk road to Michelangelo" by Jerry Brotton. One of the best presentation of the European Renaissance I had the chance to read: extremely lively and hugely learned (if interested, I have written a review on it)
- "Scribes and Scholars" by L.D. Reynold & N.G. Wilson, still unsurpassed introduction to classical philology. One of the few books in which academic and poetical are not incompatible adjectives. Extremely interesting the chapters dealing with the re-discovery of classical Latin texts, the struggle to emendate from errors and improve understanding.

You are truly welcome if you can suggest other readings or just share ideas and comments!
Thanks for reading.

I am grateful to the American Bar Association for publishing this wonderful collection of legal tales full of drama and history. And thanks to the authors for giving us a hearty portion of the juice in jurisprudence. Law Makers, Law Breakers and Uncommon Trials is an ideal traveling companion for each chapter tells a complete story that can be enjoyed while in flight, at the dinner table or at bedtime.

As a law student, lawyer and Superior Court Judge, I have read hundreds of books about the failures and triumphs of our legal system. I have never read anything that comes close to this book in recounting so many compelling stories of heroes and villans who have passed through the courts. Before reading this book, I knew a few facts about some of the 25 stories it tells. I am so pleased now to know what really happened in these famous cases. Once I got started, I couldn't set it down. Roderic Duncan

This is a great book! It moves along so seamlessly, you'd think you were having a conversation. I felt like I knew the characters. I had tears in my eyes when I finished and didn't want the book to end.

This book, A Leck in th'Ear is, probablly, the best book on Irish living I have ever read. The stories deliver exactly as promised, and then some. This is an informative, witty, nostalgic, accurate depiction of rural Ireland in the 20's and 30's. On top of all that, it is a marvelous read and captures one's imagination right from the first paragraph through the all too quick finish.
I cannot wait to get information on the author and her other books.
A Leck in thEar is a must read for anyone who has had a childhood. Period.

I received this book as a gift from my husband the year I was going to visit my grandmother in Ireland. It was terrific!! Not only was it informative, but it actually made you feel as though I visited all of the places listed in the book. I have since re-read it and also just came back from my second trip in less than 10 months.

Just want to let the reader from Boston know, you have to go and visit Ireland. You will never forget it and you will always want to go "home" again and again.

Well, I've never been to Ireland, and now I'll never have to go! I just finished reading Let's Go: Ireland 1998 from cover to cover and it was fantastic. I never read so many restaurant reviews, hotel reviews, and pub reviews in my life. My favorite section was Practical Information where you can find out who to call in Dublin when you trip and fall or lose your luggage. I may not need that info right now, but who knows? If I ever go to Co. Cork, and furthermore lose my luggage, I may not know what to do but boy will I wish I was in Dublin. Even though the information in this book shines, it is the writing that makes this edition a classic in the annals of travel writing. I think it was the editing. The researchers did a good job, but I could tell that most of the value added to the book from the previous year came from the keen eyes and golden pens of these two fabulous editors. For instance, circumambulate! Who else would be able to work that word into a budget travel guide. Five stars!

Just a quick review of the Let's Go guides. I have used three of them now, and they were all extremely well researched and structured. They making traveling on a budget simple, and not at all stressful. I recommend, even more, insist, that every budget conscious traveler invest in one of these books - it will pay for itself in about a day - maybe even over lunch!!!!!!

This book is excellent and compulsory reading for anyone visiting the UK within this year! The individual sections are written by different people, mostly students I think. You can really see how they have sussed out the places that offer the best value for your money in Britain.

In my opinion, the best sections were by Daryl Sng, who covered Central England and Wales. Those interested in UK nightlife and pubbing will find his recommendations useful. His candid and to-the-point writing saved me a lot of time and pointed me right to the sights that I needed to see. Made my planning a whole lot easier and saved me tons of time!

I'm absolutely glad I pick up this book prior to my trip. If you're planning to go to England anytime this year, don't miss this.

This is the best book ever written about the Soviet Union - in fact, it is one of the very few which are even honest. The author, a political scientist at the University of Hawaii, demonstrates that the Soviet Union committed terrible crimes against humanity, including huge massacres, forced famines and slave labour. The atrocities began with the October Revolution in 1917 and continued with Stalin's genocides against national, religious & socio-economic groups, the mass purges in Eastern Europe and the silent deaths of millions in the Gulag during the '50s, '60s, & '70s. The book concludes with the genocidal invasion of Afghanistan.

If you only want to read one book on the Soviet regime, this is it. It shows that every Soviet dictator - from Lenin to Gorbachev - committed terrible atrocities against entire populations, including large-scale massacres, man-made terror-famines, and the destruction of millions in concentration camps. After discussing the historical record, the author collects and analyses thousands of estimates of the Soviet death toll, which he calculates at nearly 62 million. This book should be compulsory reading for anyone who cares about human rights.

I read this book quite a few years ago and it remains fresh in my memory. There was nothing about it I did not totally love, especially Emilie. I was sad to see that there was only one other review of this excellent book. Everyone should read it, it is absolutely beautiful.

This is a book about endemic people, who, like plants, are rooted to a certain time and place with a specificity that is hard for a lot of us alive today to know. Emilie's tale of her tough life in the rugged mountains near Italy is told with such a wonderful conversational and error-laden english - completely engaging and romantic, with photos of people in the story she is telling. I read it while at my best friends house in Grenoble, and then we drove to the very town in the alps that Emilie grew up in. It was like a time capsule except for the cross country ski inns that have popped up and started a commercialization process. But the story she tells is of people who are like certain french cheeses made in a certain valley, that if you went over the mountain and into the next valley, that cheese could not be replicated. This is a great story and you will fall in love with it if you are someone who is nostalgic for a time and place when harsh weather, rugged mountains, and lots of work to do at home made a journey of 20 miles felt like it took you to another planet.

This book is a compeling read. It describes in minute detail the religious, social and economic structure of the time. I highly recommend this book to anyone who wishes to have a glimpse of life in Poland before WWII.

As the Holocaust recedes further into the past, it becomes increasingly difficult to treat it as more than an abstraction. It becomes defined by numbers: Six million or more dead, numbingly large. Yet, how can one who did not live in that era imagine what it truly meant, and even more so for a goy such as myself?

Ben-Zion Gold's memoir is truly a treasure, because of its portrait of Jewish life before the Holocaust. He describes his boyhood living in an Orthodox household in Radom, Poland in the 1930's. He paints rich pictures of family members and gatherings and a host of unique individuals. He depicts his religious schooling, cut short by the war.

The last few chapters briefly describe how Gold survived the war, and the impact of his ordeal on his faith. His candor and insights are deeply appreciated.

Gold originally wrote his story with his daughters in mind -- to tell them about the family in Poland, all of whom were murdered well before his daughters' birth. Fortunately for us, he has expanded the tale in such a way as to make it accessible, even to those of us with no familiarity with Jewish life or customs. I was particularly grateful for how terms are defined on first use.

The Holocaust becomes so much more meaningful now. With Gold's story, we see the faces of those who perished, their personalities, community and culture. We understand a little better what was lost.

I highly recommend this book.

Priscilla Roosevelt is a marvelous historian with a rare aesthetic sense. Her book on Russian country estates not only explains their appearance in the eighteenth century and their extraordinary development in the nineteenth century, it gives the reader a visual sense of estate architecture and garden design. When I bought this book, I read it straight through. Later, I picked it up, studied various houses that appealed to me, and let my mind wander. Reading this book is a vicarious trip straight into the world of the Russian nobility. No new reader of Tolstoy's War and Peace should tackle that book without first perusing this one!

Ms. Roosevelts highly informative and readable text combines with the volumes many photographs and illustrations to bring to life the world of the aristocracy and landed gentry of Russia and those who served them, more than a century ago.

Ms.Roosevelt's engrossing study takes on this vast subject with apparent ease and succeeds.

I recommend this book to anyone at all who is looking for an intersting read. Whether your a history buff or not you're sure to enjoy this book. By the time I had finnished the first paragraph I was unable to put it down!