Review by Choice Review
The editors have included scholarship from both sides of the Atlantic as well as from a wide range of academic disciplines in these papers from a conference held at Quinnipiac University in 2000 on the Great Irish Famine of 1845-51. The contributors go beyond retelling this event to address the famine's long-term impact. The first section of essays critiques the conventional portrayal of the famine as a regrettable yet inevitable calamity. The second group examines the rediscovery of long-ignored famine memories. Finally, the collection concludes with a self-conscious examination of contemporary efforts to integrate famine commemorations within a wider historical memory. The editors' insightful commitment to interdisciplinary research effectively answers the purposeful neglect of the famine through academic, artistic, and pedagogical correctives. As such, some of the essays fall prey to a few instances of diasporic romanticism, reflected in their reliance on Cecil Woodham Smith's seminal yet dated account, The Great Hunger (first published in 1962). Nevertheless, this collection provides an engaging appraisal of the full legacy of the famine. ^BSumming Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above. M. J. O'Brien Franciscan University of Steubenville
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Choice Review
