Perspective

This book is told in the third person. It is about the Irish potato famine. As such, the author on occasion introduces knowledge unknown during the period. For example, at the time, no one knew that the blight was caused by a fungus, Pythopthora infestans, inadvertently imported, possibly guano bought by a farmer to fertilize his field. The author, whenever possible, presents the history of the famine in the words of actual people collected from transcripts of personal interviews, historical documents, and newspaper reports. The voices she quotes are those of the farm laborers, on the lowest economic rung in Ireland's agricultural economy. Although no one in Ireland was unaffected by the famine, the poor were the most devastated. The poorer they were, the more they depended on the potato. Two of the stories she tells are those of Diarmuid O'Donovan Rossa--who did not emigrate--and Tom Flynn--who did...