[Histories of the Irish Future] is lively and provocative, its assured and admirably concise explication of key texts and propositions punctuated by the author’s own judgments and asides, which are witty, insightful and frequently challenging. The approach in each essay deftly combines the contextual with the interpretative
Gearóid Ó Tuathaigh, former Professor of History, NUI Galway, Ireland
The ... Read moreIrish Times
Fanning's work is a most enlightened and enlightening overview of the key political developments in Ireland in recent centuries, seen through the personalities and achievements of twelve people who to a large extent shaped the country's development. The book is superbly presented ... [and] concludes with exemplary notes, bibliography and index, very traditional but very necessary
Hugh Oram
Books Ireland
A work honest in its situatedness, vigorous in its argument and confident in its provision of intellectual armour for future discussions about the state of Ireland ... accessible and eminently readable ... Bryan Fanning has produced a shrewd and original text which covers so much ground economically, politically and socially. It needs to be read by Irish historians because it exposes the intellectual poverty of much Irish history-writing ... It also needs to be read by the wider public because it effortlessly bats off some of the reductionism inherent in the current media obsession with the “decade of commemorations”.
Dublin Review of Books
Fanning offers an entertaining and engaging account of 12 different writers and their visions for Ireland’s future. Although his book covers a wide chronological spectrum, from the birth of modern Ireland in the mid-17th century up to the contemporary thoughts of the early 21st century, Fanning doesn’t necessarily include the more predictable figures involved, choosing John Mitchel over Daniel O’Connell, for instance, and Hanna Sheehy Skeffington rather than Eamon de Valera. In general, intellectual engagement weighs more than political ideology, as befits the utopian title of the book. Another strength of this collection is the relationship among these thinkers, as Fanning takes pains to point out the influences and reactions that earlier figures have on later commentators through three major groupings: Irish conservatism, liberal thinkers and republicanism. Fanning’s conclusion is particularly thought provoking as he extrapolates on how each of the three groups relates to issues in today’s Ireland. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above.
M. J. O'Brien, Franciscan University of Steubenville
CHOICE
Fanning’s elegantly readable, informative, erudite and wonderfully engaging book presents the evolution of Ireland through the eyes of a number of its theorists... Fanning’s approach is entirely original, analysing different visions for Ireland’s future; his prose is clear and fluent ... it carefully explicates how Ireland came to be interpreted not just within Ireland (by nationalists, unionists, republicans and feminists) but also how it was discussed by the wider world of political theorists, economists and other intellectuals. The book presents a lucid and compelling narrative and its choice of figures presents new perspectives on Ireland as it was theorised; a tour de force.
Dermot Moran, University College Dublin, Ireland
‘We are where we are’ was a mantra frequently and unhelpfully invoked by some Irish politicians seeking to cut off discussion of the causes of the recent Irish economic crash. Bryan Fanning’s illuminating excursus through some three centuries of Irish political and social discourse instead offers a very timely and perceptive ‘we are where we were’ take on the current Irish predicament. Thoughtful, reflective, rich in anecdote and with lively pen portraits of a dozen thinkers, ranging from William Petty to Conor Cruise O’Brien and taking in along the way the likes of Edmund Burke, John Mitchel, James Connolly, Hannah Sheehy-Skeffington and Friedrich Engels, Fanning’s work is a distinguished contribution to a small corpus of work on the Irish intellectual tradition. At a time when Ireland appears to be directionless even purposeless, such a work is badly needed to inform contemporary debate about Ireland’s future.
Tom Bartlett, Professor of Irish History, University of Aberdeen, UK
A great idea for a book from a leading Irish academic and public intellectual! Here clearly explained and cleverly dissected are twelve provocative perspectives on Ireland’s future, dating from Sir William Petty’s Political Anatomy of Ireland (1672) to Fintan O’Toole’s How to Build a New Republic (2010).
Professor Cormac Ó Gráda, author of Jewish Ireland in the Age of Joyce (2006) and Famine: A Short History (2009)
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