The Great Irish Potato Famine
The Irish Potato Famine of the 1840s, one of the major human catastrophes of modern times, has been popularly perceived as a genocide attributable to the British government's actions and failures to act. In professional historical circles, however, such thinking was dismissed for many years, as evidenced by the scathing academic response to Cecil Woodham-Smith's 1963 classic, The Great Hunger: Ireland, 1845-49, which, in addition to presenting a vivid and horrifying picture of the human suffering, made strong accusations against the British government and its officials. Donnelly (Irish history, Univ. of Wisconsin) has written an intelligent, thought-provoking, and well-written book that, among other things, is a very useful survey and synthesis of the current debates about and researches into the origins and causes of the famine. Donnelly supports Cecil-Woodham's charges of British governmental sins of both omission and commission in the famine but puts those charges in a broader context, including discussion of class and regional influences on the famine in Ireland itself. The chapter notes, indexing, and bibliography are of good quality. This book would be an excellent choice to accompany and update The Great Hunger. Highly recommended for both academic and public libraries. Charlie Cowling, Drake Memorial Lib., SUNY at BrockportCopyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.