Bitter Freedom
Ireland in a Revolutionary World
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Narrated by:
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Michael Healy
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By:
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Maurice Walsh
About this listen
The Irish Revolution has long been mythologized in American culture but seldom understood. For too long the story of Irish independence and its aftermath has been told only within an Anglo-Irish context.
Now, in the critically acclaimed Bitter Freedom, journalist Maurice Walsh, with "a novelist's eye for the illuminating detail of everyday lives in extremis" (Prospect), places revolutionary Ireland in the panorama of the global disorder born of the terrible slaughter of World War I and provides a kaleidoscopic portrait of the human face of the conflict.
In this "invigorating account" (Spectator), Walsh demonstrates how this national revolution, which captured worldwide attention from India to Argentina, was itself shaped by international events, political, economic, and cultural. In the era of Russian Bolshevism and American jazz, developments in Europe and America had a profound effect on Ireland.
Bitter Freedom is "the most vivid and dramatic account of this epoch to date" (Literary Review).
©2016 Original Material © 2016 by Maurice Walsh. Recorded by arrangement with W.W. Norton & Company, Inc. (P)2016 HighBridge, a division of Recorded BooksListeners also enjoyed...
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History from a Personal Perspective
- By Jeanette Finan on 02-22-13
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The President and the Assassin
- McKinley, Terror, and Empire at the Dawn of the American Century
- By: Scott Miller
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 13 hrs and 58 mins
- Unabridged
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In 1901, as America tallied its gains from a period of unprecedented imperial expansion, an assassin's bullet shattered the nation's confidence. The shocking murder of President William McKinley threw into stark relief the emerging new world order of what would come to be known as the American Century.
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An Ideal History Book for the Audio Format
- By Nelson Alexander on 09-30-11
By: Scott Miller
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Indian Summer
- The Secret History of the End of an Empire
- By: Alex von Tunzelmann
- Narrated by: Nicola Barber
- Length: 15 hrs and 20 mins
- Unabridged
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At the stroke of midnight on August 15, 1947, the British Empire withdrew from India, igniting the exhilaration and turmoil of a newly free society. In this vivid, atmospheric popular history, Alex von Tunzelmann chronicles these times through the most prominent figures.
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Such an interesting piece of History made easy
- By Diego on 01-23-12
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Caught in the Revolution
- Petrograd, Russia, 1917 - a World on the Edge
- By: Helen Rappaport
- Narrated by: Xe Sands
- Length: 10 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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From the New York Times best-selling author of The Romanov Sisters, Caught in the Revolution is Helen Rappaport's masterful telling of the outbreak of the Russian Revolution through eyewitness accounts left by foreign nationals who saw the drama unfold.
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Ordinary People; Chaotic Times
- By David on 03-18-17
By: Helen Rappaport
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American Midnight
- The Great War, a Violent Peace, and Democracy’s Forgotten Crisis
- By: Adam Hochschild
- Narrated by: Jonathan Todd Ross
- Length: 15 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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From legendary historian Adam Hochschild, a groundbreaking reassessment of the overlooked but startlingly resonant period between World War I and the Roaring Twenties, when the foundations of American democracy were threated by war, pandemic, and violence fueled by battles over race, immigration, and the rights of labor
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Disturbing yet Reassuring
- By Sams95 on 11-18-22
By: Adam Hochschild
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To End All Wars
- A Story of Loyalty and Rebellion, 1914-1918
- By: Adam Hochschild
- Narrated by: Arthur Morey
- Length: 16 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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World War I stands as one of history's most senseless spasms of carnage, defying rational explanation. In a riveting, suspenseful narrative with haunting echoes for our own time, Adam Hochschild brings it to life as never before. He focuses on the long-ignored moral drama of the war's critics, alongside its generals and heroes. Thrown in jail for their opposition to the war were Britain's leading investigative journalist, a future winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, and an editor who, behind bars, published a newspaper for his fellow inmates on toilet paper.
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A story of personalities
- By Tad Davis on 06-09-11
By: Adam Hochschild
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October
- The Story of the Russian Revolution
- By: China Mieville
- Narrated by: John Banks
- Length: 11 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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The renowned fantasy and science fiction writer China Mieville has long been inspired by the ideals of the Russian Revolution, and here, on the centenary of the revolution, he provides his own distinctive take on its history. In February 1917, in the midst of bloody war, Russia was still an autocratic monarchy: nine months later it became the first socialist state in world history. How did this unimaginable transformation take place? How was a ravaged and backward country, swept up in a desperately unpopular war, rocked by not one but two revolutions?
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The 20th Century's New Weird History
- By Darwin8u on 08-12-17
By: China Mieville
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Prevail
- The Inspiring Story of Ethiopia's Victory over Mussolini's Invasion, 1935-1941
- By: Jeff Pearce, Richard Pankhurst - foreword
- Narrated by: Tom Parks
- Length: 24 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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It was the war that changed everything, and yet it's been mostly forgotten: in 1935, Italy invaded Ethiopia. It dominated newspaper headlines and newsreels. It inspired mass marches in Harlem, a play on Broadway, and independence movements in Africa. As the British Navy sailed into the Mediterranean for a white-knuckle showdown with Italian ships, riots broke out in major cities all over the United States.
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This is not a history, it's a package of anecdotes
- By M2 on 02-03-15
By: Jeff Pearce, and others
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Six Months in 1945
- FDR, Stalin, Churchill, and Truman--from World War to Cold War
- By: Michael Dobbs
- Narrated by: Bob Walter
- Length: 16 hrs and 37 mins
- Unabridged
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When Roosevelt, Stalin, and Churchill met in Yalta in February 1945, Hitler's armies were on the run and victory was imminent. The Big Three wanted to draft a blueprint for a lasting peace - but instead set the stage for a 44-year division of Europe into Soviet and western spheres of influence. After fighting side by side for nearly four years, their political alliance was rapidly fracturing. By the time the leaders met again in Potsdam in July 1945, Russians and Americans were squabbling over the future of Germany and Churchill was warning about an "iron curtain" being drawn down over the Continent.
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Totally Outstanding. Bravo !
- By Alan on 10-25-12
By: Michael Dobbs
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Crucible
- The Long End of the Great War and the Birth of a New World, 1917-1924
- By: Charles Emmerson
- Narrated by: Charles Emmerson
- Length: 25 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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In Petrograd, a fire is lit. The Tsar is packed off to Siberia. A rancorous Russian exile returns to proclaim a workers' revolution. In America, black soldiers who have served their country in Europe demand their rights at home. An Austrian war veteran trained by the German army to give rousing speeches against the Bolshevik peril begins to rail against the Jews. A solar eclipse turns a former patent clerk into a celebrity. An American reporter living the high life in Paris searches out a new literary style.
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Splendid in all respects
- By Paul Custer on 02-11-20
By: Charles Emmerson
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Gandhi & Churchill
- By: Arthur Herman
- Narrated by: John Curless
- Length: 29 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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In this fast-paced epic, best-selling historian and master storyteller Arthur Herman spotlights two giants of the 20th century. Gandhi & Churchill shows how their 40-year rivalry revolutionized India and the British Empire, paving the way for a new era. Gandhi championed India's independence, Churchill the British Empire.
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A motif that works well
- By Maine Dave on 11-30-09
By: Arthur Herman
What listeners say about Bitter Freedom
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Wendy K. Abrahamson
- 07-01-23
Informative, detailed, and interesting
Both the book and the reader were excellent. Appreciated learning the history of this period in Irish history with such detail and depth, and the reader was expressive and engaging without going overboard. Highly recommend.
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- Matthew Tozer
- 04-12-17
Helpful for Irish Americans
Like so many younger, third generation Irish-Americans, I've always been fascinated by Ireland. With its 15 millennia of complicated social and political situations, it can seem too foreign to wrap your head around, yet at the same time strangely familiar. The little "Irish stuff" you see is goofy plastic Paddy knick knacks that are sanitized to the tastes of an older generation desperate to assimilate. I would bet that while George Washington is known across Ireland, maybe one in ten Irish Americans could tell you who Collins or De Valera are. Material I've come across on the revolution or civil war or partition have struck me as some combination of sentimentality and propaganda. You certainly don't get a sense that you're part of a global diaspora.
This book, well narrated, really helped me get a sense of what life was like across Ireland just before and at the outset of the modern world. With current affairs in America, one very interesting aspect of the book is as a case study in a police state that sees itself as at war against their fellow citizens.
All in all this felt to me like a pretty straightforward, fascinating survey of the events that shaped Ireland at the time many of our families decided to emigrate.
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12 people found this helpful
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- Amazon Customer
- 07-16-17
Good for history buffs
Very interesting history of revolutionary Ireland. I enjoy it a lot. Good for history buffs.
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4 people found this helpful
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- Zachary Phelps
- 01-23-19
Irish Revolution and Civil War
Excellent and engaging book on the Irish revolution following the Easter Uprising and going through the Irish Civil War. A must for anyone interested in that period.
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5 people found this helpful