Ireland: A History

This is a tremendous one-volume history of Ireland, from St Patrick through to the present day. It serves as a great introduction to Irish history and should whet the appetite for further reading. Professor Bartlett is scrupulously fair and well-balanced. He writes with an easy style and with frequent flashes of humour. Highly recommended.

Short, snappy and to the point, but still brimming with detail, this is an excellent introduction to Irish history for students or the general reader. Bartlett's is offer plenty of the facts and few opinions, largely allowing the reader to draw their own conclusions. F

The cover is upsidedown and backwards, which I was not warned about. Otherwise, the book is in really great condition.

ooops sorry,been away. Very Very pleased with my book and yes it arrived quite quickly. I love all the history on Ireland even one's showing the industry,holiday places "but" mostly and would like to get my hands on one on how Ireland evolved from the beginning. As you see love Ireland mind I do have many Irish relatives who live in Kerry,Cork and Dublin. Sorry getting carried away with my life"but" as you can see I loved the book thank you. 104margaret

Well written, incredibly researched.

Although this book is a reference book it explains the history of Ireland in an interesting and beguiling manner. It is easy to follow and I found I couldn't put it down. Superb read.

Well written and informative book.

Excellent read

I managed to read a whole book from cover to cover. When you finish you hardly remember first parts of the book. Neverthless it is a very well written book and a must for everyone who wants to understand history of Ireland a little bit. I would not dare to travel to Ireland without first reading a book. If you want to have some idea about: - catholicism in this country through the centuries and relations with protestantism - bloody historic events that led to partition - character od politicians and ordinary people - and celtic tiger till great financial crisis, then take a time and digest this tome. It is a heavy, exausting read especially for me who live tousand miles away and I am not germanic or celtic, but it is worth it. For me the most shocking item was unbelivably rapid decline of Irish catholic Church and secularization of society. And beside you must take into account that Ireland never had communist regime and has weathered second world war rather well. So I hardly understand that society transformed itself so rapidly without political repression in last 50 years as a pure product of western materialism. That is my impression that I got from this book. I never was in Ireland but I intend to visit it. I hope it would be as interesting as content of this book.

Great overview, generally quite entertaining, but a bit uneven. For example, it takes 80 pages to get from 1572 to 1772, but the following 80 pages only get us as far as 1802, with far too much detail on the run-up to Union. The style also varies, from punchy, light-hearted and almost comic at times to academic and a little long-winded at others, as if chunks had been imported from other earlier work by the author. Excellent generally on the Troubles. Maybe the overview of 21st century Ireland could have highlighted the good degree of political and social cohesion, with little of the polarisation evident in other advanced societies (although the publication date means the author wouldn't have been in a position to witness the relative absence of a populist right - and the unusual presence of populist left - in Ireland).

This history of Ireland is complete, reliable, and sometimes surprising. It is also entirely readable. Where there is a choice between repeating familiar legends and setting out the facts, it always chooses that latter option. That means it does not tell us more about ancient Ireland than we actually know and does not simply repeat any of the romantic myth that often pass for modern Irish history.

Bought this as a present for my mother. She loved the book.

Un pavé, en anglais, mais complet. Peu se lire par chapitres. Un réel livre d'histoire, pas un roman. Demande un peu de concentration. Pour les amoureux des faits historiques.