Rot

An Imperial History of the Irish Famine
A landmark history of work, poverty, land reform and political economy in the era of the Irish Famine.

'Captivating, notable, brilliant, thought-provoking'
A New Yorker Best Book of 2025

'A vigorous and engaging new study of the Irish famine . Richly underpinned by research in contemporary sources and firmly rooted in historical scholarship.' Fintan O'Toole

'Comprehensive, elegantly written and heartbreaking' John Banville

'A vivid, polemical narrative that does justice to victims and explains the ideologies that worsened the disaster.' Irish Independent

'Scanlan's history of the ''Great Hunger' and its repercussions is meticulous, measured and damning.' Financial Times

'Mr. Scanlan's haunting and terrible book is undoubtedly a history title of the year.' Wall Street Journal

In the 1800s, as Britain became the world's most powerful industrial empire, Ireland starved. The Great Famine fractured long-held assumptions about political economy and 'civilisation', threatening disorder in Britain. Ireland was a laboratory for empire, shaping British ideas about colonisation, population, ecology and work.

In Rot, Padraic Scanlan reinterprets the history of this time and the result is a revelatory account of Ireland's Great Famine. In the first half of the nineteenth century, nowhere in Europe - or the world - did the working poor depend as completely on potatoes as in Ireland. To many British observers, potatoes were evidence of a lack of modernity among the Irish. However, Ireland before the famine more closely resembled capitalism's future than its past. While poverty before and during the Great Famine was often blamed on Irish backwardness, it did in fact stem from the British Empire's embrace of modern capitalism.

Uncovering the disaster's roots in Britain's deep imperial faith in markets and capitalism, Rot reshapes our understanding of the Famine and its tragic legacy.

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