The Great Irish Famine
O. Grada, Cormac / Grada, Cormac O. / Economic History Society
The Irish Famine of 1846 50 was one of the great disasters of the nineteenth century, whose notoriety spreads as far as the mass emigration which followed it. Cormac O'Grada's concise survey suggests that a proper understanding of the disaster requires an analysis of the Irish economy before the invasion of the potato-killing fungus, Phytophthora infestans, highlighting Irish poverty and the importance of the potato, but also finding signs of ...