The history of Ireland has been conceived in two ways: as the history of the English in Ireland or as the history of Gaelic Ireland, but both kinds have been concerned with personalities and institutions rather than with society as a whole. None of the many histories of Ireland tells us much about the land whose story they purport to record. In this book, Professor Estyn Evans takes a new look at Ireland. For the human geographer, if environment without man is an abstraction, so is society without environment, and history operates and takes its visual form in particular cultural environments. He contends that studies of heritage can assist the documentary historian in reaching a fuller understanding of the distinctive and continuing character of Irish history. Drawing on the findings of geography, he finds evidence for remarkable cultural continuities in this pastoral insular end of the Old World. His illustrations are taken from various historical and archaeological horizons, in particular the megalithic, the early Celtic and early Christian, and from agrarian history, folkways and field observations.

FRANCE An Introductory Geography by E. ESTYN EVANS FREDERICK A. PRAEGER, Publishers New York Washington BOOKS THAT MATTER Published in the United States of America in 1966 by Frederick A. Praeger, Inc., Publishers in Fourth Avenue, New York, N. Y. 10003 The original edition of this book was published in 1937 by Chatto Windus, London, and a revised edition was issued in 1 959 IQ37, 1959, 1966 by E. Estyn Evans All rights reserved Library of Congress Catalog Card Number 66-17365 Printed in the United States of America FOREWORD BY H. J. FLEURE Modern Geography has sometimes been called Human Ecology. It tries to show how men at varying stages in the growth or decline of civilization have grasped or neglected opportunities provided by their environment, and how in so doing they have both fitted themselves into its limiting condi tions and often also fitted it to supply their needs. Sometimes immediate needs have been too insistent and the fitting in consequence has been temporary, the ultimate relations being impoverished by sacrifice to the short view. But in the case of la belle France we have to do with a land that has been loved and worked for many centuries, a land wherein a Roman inheritance, working upon Celtic and pre-Celtic local foundations, has been stimulated by the Frankish and Norse contacts which it latinized so remarkably. No other land has such an intimate interweaving of almost all the contributions of the various peoples of Western Europe, and few, if any, other lands have such a deep social continuity, whatever the changes in politics and leadership may have meant. France is, in fact, the land that it behooves us to study most intimately if we are to follow the growth ofa civilization impregnated with the idea of maintenance rather than expan sion, of duration rather than temporary efflorescence, though both the idea of expansion and that of efflorescence have played notable parts in French life. It is with these thoughts in mind that readers will, I hope, study this book by Mr. Evans, who has learned to think from a French as well as from a British point of view and to love the sunny land about which he writes. KANSAS Ciiv MO. U3L1G LIBRARY oo 67143 IS CONTENTS FOREWORD by H. J...

A classic in its field, this charming work by a noted scholar explores traditional Irish customs and activities--from thatching a roof, churning butter, cultivating and harvesting crops, making pots and pans and building furniture to behavior at weddings, wakes, festivals, and funerals. "For all its learning, the book is popular in the best way, and admirably illustrated...."--Times Literary Supplement. (London)