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A memoir by the reputed scholar Conor Cruise O'Brien.
Written in 1972 in the wake of Bloody Sunday and direct rule, States of Ireland was Conor Cruise O'Brien's searching analysis of contemporary Irish nationalism: part-memoir, part-history, part-polemic. 'If The Great Melody (1992) is O'Brien's major academic work, States of Ireland is the one that will endure as a vital moment in Irish intellectual and political history.' Roy Foster, Standpoint ' States of Ireland [is] a book which influenced a generation. [O'Brien] saw that partition, while scarcely desirable in itself, recognized the reality of two different communities in the island, and that the Dublin state's formal irredentist claim on Northern Ireland was undemocratic and even imperialistic, as well as insincere. The republican ideology to which most Irish people paid lip service was a shirt of Nessus, he later wrote: "it clings to us and burns".' Geoffrey Wheatcroft, Oxford Dictionary of National Biography
Composite portrait of all aspects of present-day Ireland by 25 Irish writers.
In Ideas Matter a wide array of Irish and international figures pay tribute to Conor Cruise O'Brien, with a collection of original essays on a wide range of issues which fascinated O'Brien: Irish history and politics, the United Nations, the Middle East, African affairs, American studies, the interplay of literature and politics, Edmund Burke, deTocqueville, Camus, and W.B. Yeats. They also reflect, with admiration and affection, on the highlights of a remarkable career. The broad reach of these topics underscores the scope of O'Brien's concerns. This book will be of interest to students of the humanities and political sciences.
Next, O'Brien held the Schweitzer Chair at New York University, where he wrote prolifically, developed an innovative program in literature and society, and served as a model of courageous political activism.
Conor Cruise O'Brien's brilliant and hugely controversial 1965 essay on the political convictions of W. B. Yeats is the title-piece for this superb 1988 collection of pieces on politics, religion, nationalism and terrorism.'O'Brien is a man of strong views, and he writes with verve and wit. Agree with him or not, one reads him with enjoyment.' Foreign Affairs'[Passion and Cunning] displays once again [O'Brien's] wonderful range of talents: a beautiful command of the language, gentle wit and coruscating satire, shrewd political judgment and a raking critical power. O'Brien is, moreover, a critic against all-comers, his spiky guns pointing in all directions: woe betide anyone incautious enough to presume that O'Brien is on their 'side'. . . O'Brien believes in all manner of good causes, but his own independence is finally what he cares about most.' R. W. Johnson, London Review of Books
This is the first comprehensive study of the life, mind, and writings of Conor Cruise O'Brien. It is first and foremost a study of the main currents of thought in his writings, such as the centrality of religion to his conception of politics and his understanding of nationalism. In O'Brien's case, however, the contradictions of his upbringing - a secular, cosmopolitan legacy entwined with the more mainstream religious nationalist tradition from his mother's political clan - combine to form his original and distinctive contribution to Irish intellectual life. In writing this book, the unique transaction between O'Brien and the individuals whose ideas have shaped his mind is fleshed out in par...
The career of Conor Cruise O'Brien reads like the work of several people, not just one. Having served as a diplomat under Sean MacBride, he came to world prominence as special representative to Dag Hammarskjold, Secretary General of the United Nations, in the then-Congo. Squeezed ruthlessly by big-power politics, he resigned and wrote To Katanga and Back (1962), a classic in modern African history and still the only book to get behind the polished marble façade to reveal how the United Nations works. O'Brien then became Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ghana, and battled for academic freedom against one of the most amiable of tyrants, Kwame Nkrumah. He moved on to become the first incum...
Conor Cruise O'Brien's early writings contain the mature, magisterial style and substance that have made him one of the finest political philosophers alive and active today. Edited with notes by Professor Edwards, this is the first collection of O'Brien's prescient discourses on Ireland, Ulster, diplomacy, UNO, UN, Africa and more.