Description
Book SynopsisIreland, West Germany and the New Europe, 1949-73 provides an authoritative analysis of the uncharted relations between the Republic of Ireland and the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG), and marks a break from the Anglophone-centred literature on post-war Ireland. The years after 1949 defined contemporary Europe, Germany and Ireland, and the ripple effect of ideas such as trade liberalisation and European integration on the state of Ireland were profound. FRG was America’s top pupil in spreading these ideas and moulding contemporary Ireland, and this study sheds light on Ireland’s current dilemmas in the age of Brexit and Trump.
The book offers a departure from existing debates about the early history of Ireland’s rejuvenation in the 1950s and 1960s. It explains the essential role of the FRG in Ireland’s shift to become an international trading state, and of how Ireland fitted into the American-inspired refashioning of Western E
Trade Review
‘A substantial historical contribution to a Europeanist Irish Studies.’
Wilkommen go hÉirinn, Dublin Review of Books
-- .
Table of ContentsIntroduction
1. Ireland and Germany before 1949
2. Honeymoon
3. Emerging dissonance
4. Trade and agriculture in the 1950s
5. Irish industrialisation and the German ‘economic miracle’
6. Germany, Lemass and foreign policy adaptation
7. Germany and Ireland’s application to the EEC, 1961-63
8. The long road into Europe
9. Land wars, Nazis and the Troubles
Epilogue: Ireland, German reunification and remaking Europe
Select bibliography
Index
