The Famine Plot: England's Role in Ireland's Greatest Tragedy (edition 2012)

941.5

I'm not really sure what to say about this book. On the one hand, it's great to have all of this information clearly presented in one place. On the other hand, most people with any knowledge of 19th century Irish history know that England deliberately worsened the famine; it's nothing new. Coogan repeatedly acts as if he's breaking new ground with stunning new facts. I guess if you skip his foreword and ignore his historiographical editorializing it's a pretty great book. He just gets in his own way here. ( )

This is the book I wish I had written. This is a scholarly work, well cited and intelligent. Coogan's argument is that England's actions not only did nothing to slow the tide of famine, but actually caused the massive amount of death and suffering. He does a excellent job of supporting these views through a variety of resources.
While this is a scholarly book, I don't feel that a great deal of background knowledge is necessary to enjoy this book as Coogan gives a solid foundation of events. ( )

During the Irish potato famine of the late 1840s, a quarter of the Irish population was lost due to starvation, famine-related diseases, and emigration. Coogan makes a convincing case that the British government could have prevented much or most of the suffering and death. Lord John Russell's Whig government failed to do so in part owing to its devotion to laissez-faire economics, and in part because, as Coogan puts it, "Whig policy was directed at getting peasants off the land, and if it took mass death to achieve that objective, so be it." (p. 230) He makes a case that the actions or failures of Russell's government fall under the much later United Nations' definition of genocide.
Coogan's presentation is assertative without being strident. He is certainly willing to credit English politicians, philanthropists, and historians when credit is due. Much of the text consists of facts and views gathered from highly pertinent primary historical sources. My only concern is that the text is sometimes a bit difficult to follow for readers such as myself whose knowledge of Irish history is restricted to a brief outline. While certainly not a book to read for enjoyment due to its subject matter,this is a worthy presentation on an important historical topic. ( )

The Famine Plot by Tim Pat Coogan reads, in many places, more like the editorial page than the front page of a newspaper. It is, as are good editorials, extremely well-researched and strong in its viewpoint. It will not, however, give you all the background necessary to understand its argument, in that it assumes that you have also read a basic history first. (Though Mr. Coogan disagrees with some of these in his opening chapter as well.) As such, a reader should expect to have the author mix opinions (and sometimes insults -- well-deserved though they might be) with a more straight-forward historical narrative.
The book is organized by the different ways the English attempted to deal with the Famine, rather than by chronology, which, while it makes logical sense, leads sometimes to a disjointed narrative. Some chapters, too, are stronger than others. The Souperism chapter in particular seems weak while discussing whether or not (and how) soup kitchens were used to bully a starving populace into converting to Anglican ism, while the chapter on emigration goes into an interesting digression on how Irish immigrants lived once they reached the US, Canada, or LIverpool.
In all, this book would be interesting to people who are students of Irish history or are the descendants of those who survived the Famine. ( )