Description
Book SynopsisIn the first comprehensive survey of the politics of language in Ireland in the colonial and post-colonial period, Tony Crowley challenges received notions, revisits familiar materials, and considers previously little-known evidence in order to present a complex, fascinating, and often surprising history.
Trade ReviewReview from previous edition This book offers a simultaneously sweeping and subtle view into the ways language has been inextricably linked with notions of cultural, political, and personal identity throughout modern Irish history... As impressive as the breadth of Crowley's research is the beauty and accessibility of his prose: the book proves enjoyable to the historian or critic as well as the linguist. Indeed, War of Words will encourage scholars in all aspects of Irish Studies to recognize the centrality of the language issue to nearly all aspects of Irish culture and politics. * Michael J Durkan Prize Review *
Crowley's War of Words is a valuable and stimulating book, bringing together an impressive array of primary and secondary sources from more than five centuries in a carefully crafted argument... the defining account of a historical formation * Chris Morash, Times Literary Supplement *
A sourcebook, a treasure trove . . . Crowley brings a welcome sensitivity to the complexity of his subject . . . Tony Crowley's War of Words and his earlier The Politics of Language in Ireland are seminal texts for our understanding of how that dichotomy has evolved over the centuries. [Crowley has] raised profoundly important questions and provided a context in which they can be thought about and planned for in the hope that future wars over words will be far less bitter and prolonged. * Irish Literary Supplement *
a first-rate piece of scholarship that deserves to be read by any student of Ireland and her history. * Contemporary Review *
Table of ContentsIntroduction: Language acquisition ; 1. Reforming the Word and the words of the Irish, 1537-1607 ; 2. Language, God, and the struggle for history, 1607-1690 ; 3. Education, antiquity, and the beginnings of linguistic nationalism, 1690-1789 ; 4. Culture, politics, and the language question, 1789-1876 ; 5. Language and revolution, 1876-1922 ; 6. The politics of language on the island of Ireland, 1922-2004
