Luck and the Irish: A Brief History of Change from 1970

Amazon Best of the Month, March 2008: Over the past three decades, Ireland has metamorphosed from a troubled-but-winsome bastion of the Old World to a thriving economic power known as the "Celtic Tiger." With the second highest per capita income in the EU, the Republic has come a long way from the days of its political argument that the Irish economy featured a potentially desirous "less costly standard of living." Luck and the Irish chronicles this Irish revival as historian R.F. Foster explains how a perfect storm of change produced present-day Ireland. Led by progressive thought, political transformations, and even a rock band from Dublin, the Irish broke through their own oppressive chains and took "the wearing o' the green" to a global level. While such success is due in part to good fortune--it is Ireland, after all--Foster paints an engaging portrait of a nation that is just now learning to stand on its own legs in today's international scene. --Dave Callanan