The Great Hunger: Ireland 1845-9
Condition: SECONDHAND
This is a secondhand book. The jacket image is a photograph of the exact copy we have in stock. This image shows the condition of this book. Further condition remarks are below.
Edition: 1st ed.,
Condition remarks:
Book: Fair
Jacket: No dust jacket - some marks on spine and corners
Pages: Tanning and foxing
Few catastrophes in modern history reshaped a nation's destiny as profoundly as the Irish Famine of 1845–1849, and Cecil Woodham-Smith's masterful chronicle stands as the definitive account of that devastating epoch. The Great Hunger reconstructs the harrowing years in which a fungal blight obliterated Ireland's potato crop, condemning over a million souls to death by starvation and disease while driving millions more into desperate emigration — a trauma whose wounds echoed across generations and continents. Woodham-Smith brings to this monumental subject the rigour of a trained historian and the narrative drive of a born storyteller, drawing on primary sources and official records to indict the political negligence and ideological rigidity that transformed a crop failure into a human catastrophe. Her unflinching examination of British government policy — its fatal blend of laissez-faire economics and colonial indifference — remains as thought-provoking today as when it was first published. Written with compassion and scrupulous authority, this illustrated edition is essential reading for anyone who seeks to understand Ireland, its diaspora, and the enduring politics of hunger.
Author: Cecil Woodham-Smith
Format: Hardback
Published: 1962, Hamish Hamilton
Genre: History
Edition: 1st ed.,
Condition remarks:
Book: Fair
Jacket: No dust jacket - some marks on spine and corners
Pages: Tanning and foxing
Few catastrophes in modern history reshaped a nation's destiny as profoundly as the Irish Famine of 1845–1849, and Cecil Woodham-Smith's masterful chronicle stands as the definitive account of that devastating epoch. The Great Hunger reconstructs the harrowing years in which a fungal blight obliterated Ireland's potato crop, condemning over a million souls to death by starvation and disease while driving millions more into desperate emigration — a trauma whose wounds echoed across generations and continents. Woodham-Smith brings to this monumental subject the rigour of a trained historian and the narrative drive of a born storyteller, drawing on primary sources and official records to indict the political negligence and ideological rigidity that transformed a crop failure into a human catastrophe. Her unflinching examination of British government policy — its fatal blend of laissez-faire economics and colonial indifference — remains as thought-provoking today as when it was first published. Written with compassion and scrupulous authority, this illustrated edition is essential reading for anyone who seeks to understand Ireland, its diaspora, and the enduring politics of hunger.