Biographie de l'auteur
John Kelly is the author of The Great Mortality, an acclaimed history of the Black Death. He lives in New York.
Présentation de l'éditeur
The Irish famine that began in 1845 was one of the nineteenth century's greatest disasters. By its end, the island's population of eight million had shrunk by a third through starvation, disease and emigration. This is a brilliant, compassionate retelling of that awful story for a new generation - the first account for the general reader for many years and a triumphant example of narrative non-fiction at its best.
The immediate cause of the famine was a bacterial infection of the potato crop on which too many the Irish poor depended. What turned a natural disaster into a human disaster was the determination of senior British officials to use relief policy as an instrument of nation-building in their oldest and most recalcitrant colony. Well-meaning civil servants were eager to modernise Irish agriculture and to improve the Irish moral character, which was utterly lacking in the virtues of the new age of triumphant capitalism. The result was a relief programme more concerned with fostering change than of saving lives.
This is history that resonates powerfully with our own times.
Revue de presse
'John Kelly gives heartbreaking detail to the Great Famine that seared itself into the memory of the Irish people, and shed fascinating new light on the policy decisions that made it even worse. 'The Graves are Walking' is a cautionary tale for all who would risk calamity - human, economic, or ecological - in the name of scoring an ideological victory.' --President Bill Clinton
'This is a wonderful book about a terrible event. It's also a rare combination of compelling writing, excellent scholarship, and insightful analysis that ranges over the full scope of - and goes beyond - the potato famine itself, from agricultural science, through the English politics that contributed so much to the death toll, to the impact of Irish immigration in America. A truly outstanding book.' --John M Barry, author of 'The Great Influenza: The Story of the Deadliest Pandemic in History' and 'Roger Williams and the Creation of the American Soul: Church, State, and the Birth of Liberty'
''The Graves Are Walking' is compelling reading. Once again John Kelly illuminates a dark time, removing it from the shadows of legend and hearsay into the bright light of history. Even among the graves of Irish famine, he finds vivid life.' --Richard Rhodes, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of 'The Making of the Atomic Bomb' and 'John James Audubon: The Making of an American'
'I wish more people wrote history like this: fast-paced but carefully documented, lively as a novel but tackling, head on, one of the great human catastrophes of nineteenth-century Europe. Kelly's portrait of a tragedy rooted in a superpower's imperial arrogance has echoes for the world we are still living in today.' --Adam Hochschild, author of the New York Times bestseller 'To End All Wars: A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion: 1914-1918' and 'Bury the Chains: Prophets and Rebels in the Fight to Free an Empire's Slaves'
''The Graves are Walking' is an engrossing chronicle of an historic tragedy that forever changed Ireland, Britain and America. Kelly conveys the rawness of Irish suffering with a powerful intimacy - an entire nation reduced to a single wish: survival.' --Amanda Foreman, author of the acclaimed 'A World on Fire: An Epic History of Two Nations Divided' and the international bestseller 'Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire'
'According to John Kelly, 'what turned natural disaster into a human disaster' was the ill-conceived British attempt to use the crisis to wean the Irish off their potato dependency and introduce them to the benefits of free trade. The argument has potency.' --Sunday Times
''The Graves are Walking' is an engrossing chronicle of an historic tragedy that forever changed Ireland, Britain and America. Kelly convey
