{"product_id":"9781472146878-rot","title":"Rot","description":"\u003cmeta content=\"text\/html; charset=utf-8\" http-equiv=\"Content-Type\"\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cspan\u003eAn Imperial History of the Irish Famine\u003cbr\u003eA landmark history of work, poverty, land reform and political economy in the era of the Irish Famine.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cp\u003e'Captivating, notable, brilliant, thought-provoking'\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eA \u003ci\u003eNew Yorker \u003c\/i\u003eBest Book of 2025 \u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'A vigorous and engaging new study of the Irish famine . Richly underpinned by research in contemporary sources and firmly rooted in historical scholarship.'\u003cb\u003e Fintan O'Toole\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'Comprehensive, elegantly written and heartbreaking' \u003cb\u003eJohn Banville\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e'A vivid, polemical narrative that does justice to victims and explains the ideologies that worsened the disaster.'\u003cb\u003e \u003ci\u003eIrish Independent\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e'Scanlan's history of the ''Great Hunger' and its repercussions is meticulous, measured and damning.'\u003cb\u003e \u003ci\u003eFinancial Times\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e'\u003c\/b\u003eMr. Scanlan's haunting and terrible book is undoubtedly a history title of the year.' \u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eWall Street Journal\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn 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.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn \u003ci\u003eRot\u003c\/i\u003e, 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. \u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003eUncovering the disaster's roots  in Britain's deep imperial faith  in markets and capitalism, \u003ci\u003eRot\u003c\/i\u003e reshapes our understanding of the  Famine and its tragic legacy.\u003c\/p\u003e\n\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003c\/span\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Rarewaves","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":41826159231073,"sku":"9781472146878","price":18.75,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0092\/7504\/8033\/files\/orig_31618765.jpg?v=1733989390","url":"https:\/\/www.rarewaves.com\/products\/9781472146878-rot","provider":"Rarewaves.com","version":"1.0","type":"link"}