This book will provide a ground-breaking introduction to the history of poverty and welfare in modern Ireland in the era of the Irish poor law. As the first study to address poor relief and health care together, this book will fill an important gap in the existing literature providing a much-needed introduction to, and assessment of, the evolution of social welfare in nineteenth and early-twentieth century Ireland. The collection also addresses a number of related issues, including private philanthropy, the attitudes of landowners towards poor relief and the crisis of the poor law during the Great Famine of 1845-50. Together this interlinking set of contributions will both survey current research and suggest new areas for investigation thus it is hoped, proving a further stimulus to the growing field of Irish welfare history.

In the already vast literature on Churchill, no single work has focused on his changing attitude towards the Soviet Union. In the first four decades after the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, he oscillated in a seemingly bewildering fashion between enmity and apparent friendship with the Soviets. Taking the Bolshevik Revolution as its starting point, this is a pioneering study of this great statesman's relationship with the USSR until his retirement in 1955.