The Case of Ireland
The Case of Ireland
The late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries have long been seen as a foundational period for modern Irish political traditions such as nationalism, republicanism and unionism. The Case of Ireland offers a fresh account of Ireland's neglected role in European debates about commerce and empire in what was a global era of war and revolution. Drawing on a broad range of writings from merchants, agrarian improvers, philosophers, politicians and revolutionaries across Europe, this book shows how Ireland became a field of conflict and projection between rival visions of politics in commercial society, associated with the warring empires of Britain and France. It offers a new perspective on the crisis and transformation of the British Empire at the end of the eighteenth century, and restores Ireland to its rightful place at the centre of European intellectual history.
- Connects Irish political thought with British and European writings
- Reveals how the legacies of Enlightenment thinking about Ireland persisted into the nineteenth century
- Uncovers the ideological origins and resonances of major events in Irish history and how Ireland was central to European perceptions of the British Empire
Reviews & endorsements
'An impressive book that deserves a wide readership.' History Ireland
'By demonstrating the significance of Ireland in the politics and debates of the European intellectual community during the last half of the eighteenth century and first half of the nineteenth, Stafford's book makes a substantial contribution to the task of understanding the history of Europe as a whole. It should be read by anyone interested in this history.' Sam Clark, International Journal of Comparative Sociology
'… should be read by anyone interested in European history, political, socioeconomic, and cultural, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.' Paul Tonks, Journal of Modern History
'Impressive … shows why studying Ireland's complex path to modernity helps us better understand the legacies of these competing ideas about political economy in shaping contemporary post-colonial and global Ireland and its tangled and complex relationship with its nearest neighbor.' Patrick Walsh, American Historical Review
Product details
May 2024Paperback
9781009013741
308 pages
228 × 151 × 18 mm
0.46kg
Available
Table of Contents
- Introduction
- 1. The enlightenment critique of empire in Ireland, c. 1750–1776
- 2. Commerce without empire? 'Free trade' and 'legislative independence', 1776–1787
- 3. Property, revolution and peace, 1789–1803
- 4. Enlightenment against revolution: commerce, aristocracy and the case for union, 1798–1801
- 5. The granary of Great Britain: war, population and agriculture 1798–1815
- 6. Democracy, nationality and the social question, 1815–1848
- Conclusion: Ireland between empires.
