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History / Irish Studies / Women's Studies

 

A Nation of Politicians
Gender, Patriotism, and Political Culture in Late Eighteenth-Century Ireland
Padhraig Higgins

A mature work, clearly the product of years of thinking and re-thinking. It is the first convincing attempt to relate the subjects of gender, consumerism, and material culture to late eighteenth-century Ireland.” —Ian McBride, King’s College, London

Between the years 1778 and 1784, groups that had previously been excluded from the Irish political sphere—women, Catholics, lower-class Protestants, farmers, shopkeepers, and other members of the laboring and agrarian classes—began to imagine themselves as civil subjects with a stake in matters of the state. This politicization of non-elites was largely driven by the Volunteers, a local militia force that emerged in Ireland as British troops were called away to the American War of Independence. With remarkable speed, the Volunteers challenged central features of British imperial rule over Ireland and helped citizens express a new Irish national identity.

In A Nation of Politicians, Padhraig Higgins argues that the development of Volunteer-initiated activities —associating, petitioning, subscribing, shopping, and attending celebrations —expanded the scope of political participation. Using a wide range of literary, archival, and visual sources, Higgins examines how ubiquitous forms of communication —sermons, songs and ballads, handbills, toasts, graffiti, theater, rumors, and gossip —encouraged ordinary Irish citizens to engage in the politics of a more inclusive society and consider the broader questions of civil liberties and the British Empire. A Nation of Politicians presents a fascinating tale of the beginnings of Ireland’s richly vocal political tradition at this important intersection of cultural, intellectual, social, and public history.

Padhraig Higgins is assistant professor of history at Mercer County College in New Jersey.

For more information regarding publicity and reviews contact our publicity manager, Chris Caldwell, phone: (608) 263-0734, email: publicity@uwpress.wisc.edu

The cover of Higgins's book is book, with an illustration of troups firing a salute in a town square.

February 2010
LC: 2009015029 DA
368 pp.   6 x 9   20 b/w illus.
ISBN 978-0-299-23334-1
Paper $29.95 s

This is our e-book logo. It is green and represents an open book, with an e rising from it. ISBN 978-0-299-23333-4
e-book $19.95 s





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This is our e-book logo. It is green and represents an open book, with an e rising from it.A Nation of Politicians will soon be available through Amazon.com on the Kindle wireless reading device.

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“While there has been a surge of books on the 1790s in Ireland, there are precious few on the 1780s and—remarkably—nothing recent on the Volunteers. This book is timely and will fill an obvious gap.”
—Kevin Whelan, Keough Naughton Notre Dame Centre, Dublin

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Updated November 23, 2009

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