An Irish History of Civilization.

Mulligan, William H., Jr.

An Irish History of Civilization, 2 volumes, by Don Akenson. Montreal and Kingston: McGill-Queen's University Press, 2005. ix, 882 and ix, 696 pp. $39.95 US (cloth) for each volume.

At first glance, An Irish History of Civilization is imposing and a bit intimidating--two very thick volumes covering a very broad, inclusive topic by a major scholar. It does not get easier as one begins reading. In the preface, Professor Akenson modestly states that "nothing original is proposed in these volumes, only respectful commentary on what the Sages have said, or should have." And then later, "Some of the stories are accurate; all of them are true.... Still, as far as mere accuracy is concerned, not all seeming errors in the text are accidental." The first section is on Paul of Tarsus, and the reader wonders where this fits in and what does St. Paul have to do with the Irish. What are we to make of all this? Akenson refers to the Talmud several times as his model. This is a challenging work to prepare to enter.

What Akenson has produced is a remarkable achievement that brings together a lifetime of scholarship in a format rarely used in historical writing. It more than repays the effort to come to grips with the format he has chosen. An Irish History of Civilization unfolds as a series of very short essays ranging over the global diaspora community and covering some 4000 years. Few, if any scholars, could have attempted this, Akenson has written more widely about the Irish diaspora than anyone. His very influential, The Irish Diaspora, A Primer (1996) helped define the emerging field of Irish diaspora studies, as opposed to studying the Irish in a variety of host nations. He has written important and provocative monographs on the Irish in Montserrat and numerous other works. It is impossible to study the Irish diaspora or the Irish in any of the nations in which they have established a presence without encountering and engaging Akenson's work. It is very tempting to discuss Professor's Akenson's full body of work here because it is the foundation for the remarkable book under review here, but that is simply too large a task. An Irish History of Civilization builds on the broad research its author has done and follows his earlier works in demonstrating both imagination and a willingness to push beyond the normal boundaries of scholarship.

This book is organized in a way well outside the standard conventions of academic publication. There are no footnotes and no bibliography, for example. But, in the preface we have been told these are stories. Akenson seems intent on returning to the idea of history as a story, one with a moral to be sure. Here history is a collections of short, often very short, stories that engage the reader and force him or her to think along with the storyteller, rather than a tightly argued presentation of a thesis replete with footnotes and the apparatus of scholarship. Of course, even the shortest piece rests on a long career of distinguished scholarship, kept just out of sight here. The individual essays are short, often less than page, sometimes just a few sentences and all are tightly focused on an individual or a single event. People appear, disappear for a while, and then reappear in another incident or in another place. Only cumulatively and slowly do the connections and patterns emerge. This is not an easy book to read or follow, especially early on while adjusting to the unusual format. It requires an acceptance of its unusual structure, but once you accept the premise, it is well worth the effort.

Akenson's Irish world is truly global and not necessarily defined by Irish settlements in particular nations. He devotes a great deal of attention to the careers of individuals as colonial administrators, missionaries, and travelers in a variety of settings, especially the Pacific islands. This is not only a tour of places with Irish settlements, hut a discussion of the interaction between the Irish, both in groups and as individuals, with the world. One of the most interesting aspects of the book, and something that helps draw the reader in, is the perspective from which Akenson writes. He is quick to see the contradictions and ironies in the interaction between the Irish and the world and connects seemingly unrelated events. For example, the last section before the "Recessional" (not many academic historical works have a recessional) deals with Humanae Vitae. Akenson links Leo XIII's condemnation of the "Americanization" of the church in 1899 with the strongly Irish character of the American church and the increasing levels of education among the Irish-American laity in the church--one of whom, John Rock, an Irish Catholic educated at Harvard, played a central role in the development of the birth control pill. Not only that, Rock was well enough versed in church dogma to publish a book showing how the pill fit into existing Catholic moral teaching on family limitation. The papal ban on the use of the pill was largely rejected by American Catholics--for the very reasons that had led to Leo XIII's condemnation of "Americanism" in the church, closing the circle neatly.

Individuals appear and reappear, and only slowly does the full picture or the entirety of Akenson's point emerge. John Mitchel, for example, appears on a number of occasions, each of which offers a little more insight into how Akenson sees him. In a short piece on Mitchel going kangaroo hunting in Van Diemen's Land in 1853 he points out how Mitchel saw no incongruity in his situation--he was a state prisoner who had been assigned other Irish prisoners as servants and was given a shotgun for protection. I could present many such examples, but these two are sufficient. Not all the people Akenson discusses are prominent; he covers a broad range of lives--the successful who were wealthy or powerful, often both, and those who never found success or even a minimal level of security or comfort. A great strength of the book is its complete lack of a celebratory tone about Irish success or a hagiographic treatment of those who did attain prominence. Further, and this will surprise no one who is familiar with Professor Akenson's work, his "Irish" are members of no particular church. Catholics and Protestants of various persuasions are all equally Irish. Akenson also manages to accentuate the humanity of his subjects. The reader encounters them slowly, a bit at a time, much as their careers unfolded while they were alive.

So, in the end, what has Akenson given us? Is the effort required rewarded? To answer the second question first: yes. Akenson has presented a richly textured history of the contact between the Irish and the larger world over the full spectrum of historical time and place. There is randomness to it at times, but that emerges as one of Akenson's points--the unpredictability of events and how people will act in different contexts. There was no grand plan for the Irish diaspora; it unfolded as a result of a myriad of events driven by the dynamic of Irish history and by the needs and aspirations of individuals. Professor Akenson's approach captures this diversity brilliantly. There is no central controlling narrative in the book because there is no central controlling narrative in the experience of the Irish as they moved out of Ireland and encountered the world. Each new contact shaped the Irish and those they encountered in unintended and unforeseeable ways. It is a grand historical story, well told here by a major scholar who has brought his life's work together in an innovative and ultimately successful way.

William H. Mulligan, Jr.

Murray State University