The Cambridge History of Ireland

This volume offers fresh perspectives on the political military religious social cultural intellectual economic and environmental history of early modern Ireland and situates these discussions in global and comparative contexts. The opening chapters focus on ''Politics'' and ''Religion and War'' and offer a chronological narrative informed by the re-interpretation of new archives. The remaining chapters are more thematic with chapters on ''Society'' ''Culture'' and ''Economy and Environment'' and often respond to wider methodologies and historiographical debates. Interdisciplinary cross-pollination - between on the one hand history and on the other disciplines like anthropology archaeology geography computer science literature and gender and environmental studies - informs many of the chapters. The volume offers a range of new departures by a generation of scholars who explain in a refreshing and accessible manner how and why people acted as they did in the transformative and tumultuous years between 1550 and 1730.