Matthew Tozer
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Bitter Freedom
- Ireland in a Revolutionary World
- De: Maurice Walsh
- Narrado por: Michael Healy
- Duración: 15 h y 8 m
- Versión completa
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General4.5 out of 5 stars 69
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Narración:4.5 out of 5 stars 61
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Historia4.5 out of 5 stars 60
The Irish Revolution has long been mythologized in American culture but seldom understood. For too long the story of Irish independence and its aftermath has been told only within an Anglo-Irish context. Now, in the critically acclaimed Bitter Freedom, journalist Maurice Walsh, with "a novelist's eye for the illuminating detail of everyday lives in extremis" ( Prospect), places revolutionary Ireland in the panorama of the global disorder born of the terrible slaughter of World War I and provides a kaleidoscopic portrait of the human face of the conflict.
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4 out of 5 stars
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Helpful for Irish Americans
- De Matthew Tozer en 04-12-17
- Bitter Freedom
- Ireland in a Revolutionary World
- De: Maurice Walsh
- Narrado por: Michael Healy
Helpful for Irish Americans
Revisado: 04-12-17
Like so many younger, third generation Irish-Americans, I've always been fascinated by Ireland. With its 15 millennia of complicated social and political situations, it can seem too foreign to wrap your head around, yet at the same time strangely familiar. The little "Irish stuff" you see is goofy plastic Paddy knick knacks that are sanitized to the tastes of an older generation desperate to assimilate. I would bet that while George Washington is known across Ireland, maybe one in ten Irish Americans could tell you who Collins or De Valera are. Material I've come across on the revolution or civil war or partition have struck me as some combination of sentimentality and propaganda. You certainly don't get a sense that you're part of a global diaspora.
This book, well narrated, really helped me get a sense of what life was like across Ireland just before and at the outset of the modern world. With current affairs in America, one very interesting aspect of the book is as a case study in a police state that sees itself as at war against their fellow citizens.
All in all this felt to me like a pretty straightforward, fascinating survey of the events that shaped Ireland at the time many of our families decided to emigrate.
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esto le resultó útil a 12 personas
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The English and Their History
- De: Robert Tombs
- Narrado por: James Langton
- Duración: 43 h y 9 m
- Versión completa
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General4.5 out of 5 stars 692
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Narración:4.5 out of 5 stars 606
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Historia4.5 out of 5 stars 598
Robert Tombs' momentous The English and Their History is both a startlingly fresh and a uniquely inclusive account of the people who have a claim to be the oldest nation in the world. The English first came into existence as an idea, before they had a common ruler and before the country they lived in even had a name. They have lasted as a recognizable entity ever since, and their defining national institutions can be traced back to the earliest years of their history.
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3 out of 5 stars
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Should be called, The English and their politics
- De Mary Elizabeth Reynolds en 08-24-16
- The English and Their History
- De: Robert Tombs
- Narrado por: James Langton
A solid, if a bit old fashioned, primer
Revisado: 10-05-16
An ambitious undertaking because of the scope, the author out of necessity glosses over many subjects of interest such as England's relationship with Ireland. The book tries to trace a sense of an English national temperment but generally gives for his examples "great men." To my American ears, about 10% of this book is made of apoligist phrases like "but still better than France and Germany." It seems a bit silly to praise your ancestors for burning slightly fewer witches per capita than rival nations. Then again, I guess it reiterates the theme of an island people anxiously comparing themselves to their continental neighbors.
All this said, this is a history of "the English" and not a history of the people of England, and does a great job at illuminating a few thousand years of the political and economic context of a nation.
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esto le resultó útil a 27 personas