Atlas of the Irish Revolution|Crowley, Ó Drisceoil, Murphy, Borgonovo|Cork University Press|ISBN: 9781782051176|€59.00
Backlist Beauties is a series where publishers choose a title from their back catalogue which sparkles. Next up we have Cork University Press with their phenomenal publication Atlas of the Irish Revolution.
What we love about this book:
Winning the best overall Irish book of the Year in 2017 meant that the content of Atlas of the Irish Revolution was spread beyond an academic audience to the general reading public and went on to sell 31,000 books.
The book was then made into a three part public documentary series by RTÉ which was sold into North America and Europe. The Atlas of the Irish Revolution formed a backbone to the Irish Decade of Centenaries. The Atlas content was also integrated into teaching units for second level schools. A copy was also sent gratis to every public library in Ireland.
A little flavour of what’s inside
“This book magnificently dissects the Irish revolution of 1913-23, layer by layer by layer. The words “landmark” and “groundbreaking” are much overused by publishers, but Cork University Press is much justified in employing those descriptions to trumpet this mammoth production, in all its glory, amounting to 5kg and one thousand pages of enlightened essays, chapters and case studies by over 100 scholars with accompanying maps, tables, statistics, photographs and documents.
It should not be lifted without first bending the knees. But it should be read, consulted and savoured for many years to come by anyone with an interest in modern Irish history. It is also very fairly priced, given the extent of what it offers.”—Diarmaid Ferriter, The Irish Times
A line that sings
Nelson Mandela seems to have hit on the correct sense of the phrase (‘cherishing all the children of the nation equally’) when he addressed the Dáil on 2 July 1990: The very fact that there is today an independent Irish State confirms that we too shall become a free people; we too shall have a country which will, as the great Irish patriots said in the proclamation of 1916, cherish all the children of the nation equally.
Cover designer: Alison Burns Studio10
The cover was based on a painting by Sean Keating called The Men of the South and the cover produced its own story in the national press.
