John Newsinger's work offers a new view of Irish republicanism in the 1860s, seeing it as part of a European-wide nationalist phenomenon alongside is crucial role in the evolution of Irish republicanism. Newsinger charts the rise and fall of the Fenian movement in detail in Ireland as well as in Britain and the USA, examining the key events, developments and personalities, in particular the Fenian's attempts to establish an alliance with British radicalism. The book also covers related themes such as the impact of the Famine on Irish society and the British response, Irish confederation and the 1848 rising and the politics of John Mitchel - the founder of Irish republicanism.

FROM THE AMAZON "This is a (maybe even THE) classic work about the revolutionary events in Central Europe at the end of the First World War. Centred mainly in Germany and Austria, it also covers the upheavals in the some of the Hapsburg's and Hohenzollern's lands, namely Poland, Hungary, and Bohemia. The extraordinarily complex and troubled history of that period of crumbling age old institutions and venerable empires certainly have here a panoramic overview deserving repeated readings. Indispensable in order to understand the origins of the dramatic years ahead culminating in an even more terrible World War...." "This is the best study in the revolutionary events of 1918–1919 in Austria, Germany and Hungary. I cannot reccommend it highly enough...."