المستخلص: |
This essay investigates the disastrous impact of the Great Famine on the communal life in Ireland in the mid nineteenth century. It particularly raises this question about the calamity; was the Famine a pure ecological disaster or a man-made calamity? Which party to indict and hold accountable for the disaster? It analyzes the relationship between Britain and Ireland, historically, politically, economically, and ideologically. It examines two different theories of the Famine: the first accuses the British government of the time, and the second blames nature for the disaster. The first is often voiced by nationalist historiography, while the second is revisionist. Yet, my paper investigates more closely the political economy that dominated the age, that is, laissez faire, and its intellectual and religious ramifications. The connivance between colonization and capitalism is, it concludes, at the heart of the Irish calamity.
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