Black Potatoes: The Story of the Great Irish Famine, 1845-1850 | Susan Campbell Bartoletti

Black Potatoes: The Story of the Great Irish Famine, 1845-1850 | Susan Campbell Bartoletti | Horribly Brilliant

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Black Potatoes: Th...

	Black Potatoes: The Story of the Great Irish Famine, 1845-1850 Susan Campbell Bartoletti Houghton Mifflin, 2005 - 192 pages average customer review:based on 8 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

In 1845, a disaster struck Ireland. Overnight, a mysterious blight attacked the potato crops, turning the potatoes black and destroying the only real food of nearly six million people.

Over the next five years, the blight attacked again and again. These years are known today as the Great Irish Famine, a time when one million people died from starvation and disease and two million more fled their homeland.
Black Potatoes is the compelling story of men, women, and children who defied landlords and searched empty fields for scraps of harvested vegetables and edible weeds to eat, who walked several miles each day to hard-labor jobs for meager wages and to reach soup kitchens, and who committed crimes just to be sent to jail, where they were assured of a meal. It's the story of children and adults who suffered from starvation, disease, and the loss of family and friends, as well as those who died. Illustrated with black and white engravings, it's also the story of the heroes among the Irish people and how they held on to hope.

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The Horrific Blight

What would you do if there was no food to eat, no clean clothes to wear or no shoes to wear in winter? The answers to these questions are found in Black Potatoes, which is set in Ireland in 1845 at the onset of the Potato famine. At the time of the potato famine, there were three classes of people in Ireland, the Irish farm laborers, the Irish farmers, and the English landlords. The farm laborers were the poorest, the farmers were middle class, and the landlords were the wealthy and powerful. The farm laborers and farmers rented land from the landlords and planted potatoes. When the potato famine hit, the Irish had a hard time paying their rents because of their failed crops. The Irish people had a long and enduring time during the potato famine to keep their families fed and well. The British Government came to the aid of the Irish, but many
times it was too late. The book is very Anti-British and rightfully so according to the evidence of British attitudes toward the Irish that reveal the ethnic and religious prejudices that divided the Irish and the English. The writing style of the author is very realistic and Irish everyday life is very detailed that it leaves a horrific feeling of sadness for those who lived and died during the potato famine and the years after. The pictures in the book are actual sketches obtained from various sources such as the Illustrated London News and British and Irish libraries.

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Horribly Brilliant

This is an excellent summary of the Potato (note that spelling, Danny-Boy-O Quayle) Famine that plagued Ireland from 1845-1850, when the fungus Pythophthora Infestans destroyed the staple crop. Author Susan Campbell Barttoletti deftly explores the swirling pathological, sociological, political, and theological soup caused by the rotting potatoes and the aftermath. She relies on original sources and interviews with descendants of the resultant Diaspora. This book is found in the children's section of the library, but frankly, I found it hard to read myself - not because the words or concepts are difficult, but because it is so very grim - the horror! the horror! /TundraVision, Amazon reviewer.

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excellent summary of famine

Black Potatoes is a very readable and understandable review of the important elements of the Irish potato famine of the 1840s. Wishing to learn more about this essential event in my Irish-American heritage, I read the book, The Great Hunger, which is offered and reviewed separately at this site. I mistakenly thought that would be a better read than Black Potatoes which is advertised as being for a high-school audience. But all the essentials of The Great Hunger were delivered in less than 1/3 the text by Black Potatoes, which of course is a much faster and informative read. In addition, it carries many sketches which make the story that much more vivid and imaginable, while there are many fewer in The Great Hunger which seems itself written more from the British point of view than the Irish (the author of Hunger was herself British). Black Potatoes is an excellent way to get a rapid understanding of that pivotal five-year period in Irish history.

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A Hungry History

An interesting and worthwhile history, made more palatable than a textbook by the extensive quotations of personal accounts and contemporary newspaper illustrations.

Broad in scope and adequate in depth, the book treats the Great Irish Famine of 1845-1850 with a sensitive, compassionate tone, spending great time on the human toll of the Famine, as well as the diseases it invited and the social upheaval it instigated.

Bartoletti vividly illustrates the dehumanizing and horrifying experience of the starving Irish, and explicitly eschews diplomacy to explore the economic and political causes. The book also explores both the (perceived or actual) maintenance and possible exacerbation of the crisis by the English government and the English landlords. Bartoletti concludes that the awkward and faltering relief was so unwillingly given because of staunchly protected laissez-faire economics as well as cultural biases and prejudice against the Irish. These factors created a political climate where merely the forecast of improvement caused the English to quit relief programs, often too soon, thus causing the situation to worsen for the Irish, creating staggering costs - in pounds as well as in lives.

Brief treatment of revolutionary activity is included, as well as interesting exposition of folk beliefs and practices.

This book avoids the "boring history" noose of more densely-written academic works, and is clearly targeted at young adults with its narrative style, but I recommend this for anyone wishing to read more deeply on this subject. Definitely written from an Irish point of view, but well researched and rich in original sources.

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Great intro for younger readers

This book describes the Great Hunger in a balanced way. It discusses the repeated crop failures -- potatoes were the staple of the Irish diet, due to the tenant farming situation of the time. (Tenant farming resembles, to me, sharecropping in the American South.)

The book alternates between describing the famine and the people affected by it and by the responses of the of both the British Government and the NGOs of the time. It highlights how the governmental policies failed and how many in Britain felt that the famine was God's justice against the Catholic Irish. It's this perfect storm of a natural disaster, governmental incompetence and prejudice that makes the Great Hunger so tragic. (IT;s also easy to draw parallels between the Great Hunger and the early responses to AIDS or to Katrina.)

Black Potatoes is a great introduction to the Irish Potato Famine, but it;s aimed more at middle or high school aged children.

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reviews: page 1, 2

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