Ireland's New Worlds: Immigrants, Politics, and Society in the United States and Australia, 1815-1922 (History of Ireland & the Irish Diaspora)

ISBN: 0299223345

Author: Campbell, Malcolm

Condition: New

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.Irelands 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. Americas Irish, for example, were primarily drawn into the population of unskilled laborers congregating in cities, while Australias 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 Irelands new worlds.Outstanding Book, selected by the American Association of School Librarians, and Best Books for Special Interests, selected by the Public Library AssociationWell conceived and thoroughly researched . . . . This clearly written, thought-provoking work fulfills the considerable ambitions of comparative migration studies.-Choice