R. F. Foster

Masterfully blending narrative and interpretation, and R.F. Foster's Modern Ireland: 1600-1972 looks at how key events in Irish history contributed to the creation of the 'Irish Nation'. 'The most brilliant and courageous Irish historian of his generation' Colm Tóibín, London Review of Books 'Remarkable ... Foster gives a wise and balanced account of both forces of unity and forces of diversity ... a master work of scholarship' Bernard Crick, New Statesman 'A tour de force ... Anyone who really wants to make sense of Ireland and the Irish must read Roy Foster's magnificent and accessible Modern Ireland' Anthony Clare 'A magnificent book. It supersedes all other accounts of modern Irish history' Conor Cruise O'Brien, Sunday Times 'Dazzling ... a masterly survey not so much of the events of Irish history over the past four centuries as of the way in which those events acted upon the peoples living in Ireland to produce in our own time an "Irish Nation" ... a gigantic and distinguished undertaking' Robert Kee, Observer 'A work of gigantic importance. It is everything that a history book should be. It is beautifully and clearly written; it seeps wisdom through its every pore; it is full of the most elegant and scholarly insights; it is magnificently authoritative and confident ... Modern Ireland is quite simply the single most important book on Irish history written in this generation ... A masterpiece' Kevin Myers, Irish Times R. F. Foster is Carroll Professor of Irish History at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of Hertford College, Oxford. His books include Modern Ireland: 1600-1972, Luck and the Irish and W. B. Yeats: A Life.

1600-1972

Modern Ireland

Robert Fitzroy Foster

"... Over 2000 years of Irish history, from pre-Christian times to the present-day Troubles."--Back cover.

The Oxford History of Ireland

Connections in Irish and English History

Paddy and Mr. Punch

Few countries in the world have such a compelling, individual, and stirring history as Ireland. This new volume in a distinguished series offers the most authoritative account of Irish history ever published for the general reader. Written by an expert team of scholars, and richlyillustrated throughout, it takes us from the very earliest prehistoric communities and first Christian settlements, through centuries of turbulent change to the present day. The story is one of paradox and ambiguity, as well as of unifying overall themes. Patterns of settlement and colonisation, religious confrontation, and the emergence of new political patterns are among the issues discussed. The question of Irish identity, and the meaning of 'colonialism' in thevery Irish sense, raise important questions about the use of language: a special feature of the book is a chapter devoted to the language and literature which preserve, in their way, a record of Irish history. The conflicts, settlements, discontinuities, and unities of Irish history are illustrated with reference to landscape, artefacts, architecture, and an enormous variety of contemporary visual evidence. There are over 200 photographs including 24 full-colour plates, and the volume comes completewith reference material, maps, a chronology, lists of further reading and a full index. Wide-ranging, challenging, and highly readable, this vivid view of Irish history will instruct and entertain students, scholars, and general readers alike.

The Oxford Illustrated History of Ireland

Foster's Complete Hoyle by R. F. Foster: Step into the world of card games and etiquette with R. F. Foster's "Foster's Complete Hoyle." This comprehensive guide offers insights into classic card games, strategies, and the finer points of social card playing. Foster's expertise ensures that both novices and seasoned players will find a wealth of knowledge to enhance their gaming experience. Why This Book? "Foster's Complete Hoyle" serves as a timeless reference for card enthusiasts, bridging the gap between game mechanics and the art of interaction. Whether you're a casual player or a dedicated card shark, this guide offers a treasure trove of insights into the world of card games.

Foster's Complete Hoyle

W. B. Yeats is usually seen as a great innovator who put his stamp so decisively on modern Irish literature that most of his successors worked in his shadow. R. F. Foster's eloquent and authoritative book weaves together literature and history to present an alternative perspective. By returning to the rich seed-bed of nineteenth-century Irish writing, Words Alone charts some of the influences, including romantic 'national tales' in post-Union Ireland, the poetry and polemic of the Young Ireland movement, the occult and supernatural novels of Sheridan LeFanu, William Carleton's 'peasant fictions', and fairy-lore and folktale collectors that created the unique and powerful Yeatsian voice of the decade from 1885 to 1895. As well as placing these literary movements in a vivid contemporary context of politics, polemic and social tension, Foster discusses recent critical and interpretive approaches to these phenomena. He shows that the use Yeats made of his predecessors during his apprenticeship, and the part that a self-conscious use of Irish literary tradition played in the construction of his path-breaking early work as he attempted to 'hammer his thoughts into a unity' made him an inheritor as much as an inventor.

Yeats and his Inheritances

Words Alone

An account of Ireland that explores the island from its prehistoric communities to its present political unrest, addressing seldom-discussed issues of its social inequality, Victorian morals, and other questions.

From about 1970, Irish history moved into a fast-forward phase. Roy Foster’s new book looks at the roots of the changes which came with an almost completely unexpected wave of prosperity. With sympathy, astringency and humour, he examines the upheavals in economics, North-South attitudes, international relations, demography, gender roles, sexual mores, culture and religion which accompanied the boom, as well as the significance of such emblematic characters as Mary Robinson, Bob Geldof and Charles Haughey. Luck and the Irish also discusses the themes of corruption, scandal, New Age Celticism, popular culture and the occasional retreat into reactionary attitudes that followed the liberalization, enrichment and marketing of the New Ireland: and what these transformations mean for Irish history in the long run.

A Brief History of Change, 1970-2000

Luck and the Irish

The acclaimed first volume of this definitive biography of W. B. Yeats left him in his fiftieth year, at a crossroads in his life. The subsequent quarter-century surveyed in The Arch-Poet takes in his rediscovery of advanced nationalism and his struggle for an independent Irish culture, his continued pursuit of supernatural truths through occult experimentation, his extraordinary marriage, and a series of tumultuous love affairs. Throughout he was writing his greatest poems: 'The Fisherman' and 'The Wild Swans at Coole' in their stark simplicity; the magnificently complex sequences on the Troubles and Civil War; the Byzantium poems; and the radically compressed last work - some of it literally written on his deathbed. The drama of his life is mapped against the history of the Irish revolution and the new Irish state founded in 1922. Yeats's many political roles and his controversial involvement in a right-wing movement during the early 1930s are covered more closely than ever before, and his complex and passionate relationship with the developing history of his country remains a central theme. Throughout this book, the genesis, alteration, and presentation of his work (memoirs and polemic as well as poetry) is explored through his private and public life. The enormous and varied circle of Yeats's friends, lovers, family, collaborators, and antagonists inhabit and enrich a personal world of astounding energy, artistic commitment, and verve. Yeats constantly re-created himself and his work, believing that art was 'not the chief end of life but an accident in one's search for reality': a search which brought him again and again back to his governing preoccupations: sex and death. He also held that 'all knowledge is biography', a belief reflected in this study of one of the greatest lives of modern times.

The Arch-Poet 1915-1939

W. B. Yeats: A Life II

In the first authorized biography of Yeats to appear in over 50 years, leading historian R. F. Foster travels beyond Yeats's towering image as arguably the century's greatest poet to restore a real sense of his extraordinary life as he experienced it. 62 halftones, 19 linecuts.

R. F. Foster

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