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Ireland's
New Worlds
Immigrants, Politics,
and Society in the United States and Australia,
1815–1922
Malcolm Campbell
History of Ireland and the Irish Diaspora
James S. Donnelly, Jr., and Thomas Archdeacon, Series Editors
"An ambitious and bracing comparative
analysis. Campbell's study cuts across sealed national narratives
and tests common assumptions about Irish emigration before and
after the Great Famine."–Eric
Richards, Flinders University, Australia
In the century between the Napoleonic Wars
and the Irish Civil War, more than seven million Irish men and
women left their homeland to begin new lives abroad. While the
majority settled in the United States, Irish emigrants dispersed
across the globe, many of them finding their way to another "New
World," Australia.
Ireland's New Worlds is the first book to compare Irish
immigrants in the United States and Australia. In a profound
challenge to the national histories that frame most accounts
of the Irish diaspora, Malcolm Campbell highlights the ways that
economic, social, and cultural conditions shaped distinct experiences
for Irish immigrants in each country, and sometimes in different
parts of the same country. From differences in the level of hostility
that Irish immigrants faced to the contrasting economies of the
United States and Australia, Campbell finds that there was much
more to the experiences of Irish immigrants than their essential
"Irishness." America's Irish, for example, were primarily
drawn into the population of unskilled laborers congregating
in cities, while Australia's Irish, like their fellow colonialists,
were more likely to engage in farming. Campbell shows how local
conditions intersected with immigrants' Irish backgrounds and
traditions to create surprisingly varied experiences in Ireland's
new worlds.
"A sustained essay in comparative history, the purpose of
which is to challenge facile assumptions about the Irish in America
by contrasting their performance with that of emigrants of similar
social, religious, and cultural origins who settled in Australia.
The striking contrasts in emigrant performance in these two host
countries indicate that transplanted 'Irishness' cannot explain
the peculiarities of social, economic, and political behavior
attributed to the Irish in America."–David Fitzpatrick,
Trinity College, Ireland
Malcolm Campbell is
associate professor of history at the University of Auckland,
New Zealand.
Media & bookseller inquiries regarding review copies, events, and interviews can be directed to the publicity department at publicity@uwpress.wisc.edu or (608) 263-0734. (If you want to examine a book for possible course use, please see our Course Books page. If you want to examine a book for possible rights licensing, please see Rights & Permissions.)
Of Related Interest
The Slow
Failure
Population Decline and Independent Ireland, 1920–1973
Mary E. Daly
The Bible War in
Ireland
The "Second Reformation" and the Polarization of Protestant-Catholic
Relations, 1800–1840
Irene Whelan
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January 2008
LC: 2007011736 E
296 pp. 6 x 9
10 b/w illus., 3 maps, 2 graphs
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Cloth $65.00 s
ISBN 978-0-299-22330-4
Paper $29.95 s
ISBN 978-0-299-22334-2 |
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