Preface -- Acknowledgements -- Introduction -- Famine and government response, 1845-6 -- Production, prices, and exports, 1846-51 -- Administration of relief, 1846-7 -- Soup kitchens and amending the poor law -- Amended poor law and mass death, 1847-51 -- Landlords and tenants -- Excess mortality and emigration -- Famine in Irish politics -- Constructing the memory of the famine, 1850-1900

"The Great Irish Potato Famine provides an accessible, comprehensive account of the famine, combining narrative, analysis, historiography, and scores of contemporary illustrations. It furnishes vivid insights into the misery of the famine and the additional nightmare of the mass evictions that followed. Professor Donnelly aims to answer the numerous vexed questions which have surrounded the subject ever since. Was Britain guilty of genocide against the Irish people, or was British culpability more complex? Could the disaster have been considerably reduced in its dimensions, even if not averted altogether? Scholarly and up-to-date, this book will be required reading for anyone with an interest in Ireland or in the way natural disasters and government responses to them can alter the destiny of nations."--Jacket