Bøker av Professor R F Foster

OBSERVER BOOKS OF THE YEAR 2015TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT BOOKS OF THE YEAR and OBSERVER BOOKS OF THE YEAR 2014WINNER OF THE AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION'S MORRIS D. FORKOSCH PRIZE 2016'The most complete and plausible exploration of the roots of the 1916 Rebellion... essential reading' Colm T ib nVivid Faces surveys the lives and beliefs of the people who made the Irish Revolution: linked together by youth, radicalism, subversive activities, enthusiasm and love. Determined to reconstruct the world and defining themselves against their parents, they were in several senses a revolutionary generation.The Ireland that eventually emerged bore little relation to the brave new world they had conjured up in student societies, agit-prop theatre groups, vegetarian restaurants, feminist collectives, volunteer militias, Irish-language summer schools, and radical newspaper offices. Roy Foster's book investigates that world, and the extraordinary people who occupied it. Looking back from old age, one of the most magnetic members of the revolutionary generation reflected that 'the phoenix of our youth has fluttered to earth a miserable old hen', but he also wondered 'how many people nowadays get so much fun as we did'. Working from a rich trawl of contemporary diaries, letters and reflections, Vivid Faces re-creates the argumentative, exciting, subversive and original lives of people who made a revolution, as well as the disillusionment in which it ended.

From 1970, things were changing in Ireland the Celtic Tiger had finally woken, and the rules for everything from gender roles and religion to international relations were being entirely rewritten. Luck and the Irish examines how the country has weathered these last thirty years of change, and what these changes may mean in the long run. R. F. Foster also looks at how characters as diverse as Gerry Adams, Mary Robinson, Charles Haughey and Bob Geldof have contributed to Ireland s altered psyche, and uncovers some of the scandals, corruption and marketing masterminds that have transformed Ireland and its luck.

Examines how key events in Irish history have been recast and retold to serve a multiplicity of purposes. In this book, the author demolishes the cliches that surround Ireland's past, examining how key moments have been turned into myths - and, recently, airbrushed and repackaged for Hollywood and popular culture.

Looks at how key events in Irish history contributed to the creation of the 'Irish Nation'. This book supersedes all other accounts of modern Irish history".