The #1 Irish Times bestseller, from the author of The Shortest History of Germany and The Shortest History of England—a brilliantly told brief history of Ireland, from medieval kingdoms to famines, religious conflict and civil war to today
The Emerald Isle has no shortage of cultural touchpoints—from foam-topped pints of Guiness to the poetry of Yeats, raucous St. Patrick’s Day festivities to the music of U2 and Hozier, Ireland has long been understood as a welcoming people and a popular destination. War, famine, and religious struggles have also plagued the country, however, resulting in a partitioned Ireland and a struggling national identity.
In The Shortest History of Ireland, James Hawes crafts a comprehensive and captivating account of Ireland’s national story. He shows us that thanks to a unique culture rooted in millennia of continuity, Ireland has always been able to assimilate would-be invaders, and reveals how the Irish, ever since the roaming saints and scholars of the early Middle Ages, have helped to shape Europe, and then America.
Though Irish history is often seen as a mere catalog of colonial repression, Hawes reaches beyond the cliches and the assumptions to tell a dramatic new story, backed up by the latest scholarship. Steering readers through medieval kingdoms and bloody invasions, disastrous famines and the age of empire, and finally to ongoing tensions of nationhood and independence, Hawes argues that, with its natural wealth, its extraordinary magnetism, and its exiled children across the globe, the island only needs to sidestep the last detritus of the British Empire for its turbulent past to flow into a bright future.
With more than 200 maps and images, this is popular history at its best—a timeless drama of freedom and persecution, riot and revolution, empire, and independence.
The Shortest History books deliver thousands of years of history in one riveting, fast-paced read.
“#1 Irish Times Bestseller
"Deeply impressive . . . positively spacious with none of the whistle-stop breathlessness one might have expected. . . . Hawes brings a pleasing erudition and depth plus a crucial note of accessibility; and displays an obvious understanding of Ireland’s age-old complexities.”—Irish Times
“A thrilling ride through 14,526 years of Irish history. . . . Wonderful, never less than remarkable.”—Irish Independent
“Amazingly lucid . . . leaping off the page as it cuts through the weeds.”—Stuart Ward, Harvard University
“After his masterpieces on Germany and England, James Hawes has done it again . . . a wonder to behold.”—Professor Ciaran Martin
“Using evidence from history, archaeology, linguistics, and even DNA analysis, Hawes superbly charts the development of Irish society from earliest pre-history right up to modern times.”—Dr. Kieran O’Conor, Galway University
“Fresh, invigorating and a challenge to many of the orthodoxies of Irish history writing. I wholeheartedly recommend it.”—Professor Pól Ó Dochartaigh, Galway University
