The encroachment of globalization and demands for greater regional autonomy have had a profound effect on the way we picture Ireland. This challenging new look at the key of sovereignty asks us how we should think about the identity of a postnationalist' Ireland. Richard Kearney goes to the heart of the conflict over demand for communal identity - traditionally expressed by nationalism, and the demand for a universal model of citizenship - traditionally expressed by republicanism. In so doing, he asks us to question whether the sacrosanct concept of absolute national sovereignty is becoming a luxury ill afforded in the emerging new Europe. Kearney then takes us beyond the political with chapters on the influence of philosophers such as George Berkeley, John Toland and John Tyndall and looks at some of the myths in Irish poetry and nationhood. Postnationalist Ireland provides a recasting of contemporary Irish politics, culture, literature and philosophy and will appeal to students of these subjects and Irish studies in general.
Biography
Richard Kearney is Professor of Philosophy at University College, Dublin, and lectures regularly at Boston College. He has presented cultural and literary features on Irish and European television and has recently published his first novel, Sam’s Fall.
'I have to admire what he has unwrapped - a kind of preview of the new order in which we shall have to reinterpret our regional, national and transnational commitments if we are to escape the arrogance of nationalism and its programmed consequences.' - The Observer
'The book is worth buying for the politics section alone: Kearney's analysis of such concepts as nationality, sovereignty, regionalism and republicanism make the book a sourcebook of political theory for the Irish situation. In its own re-imaginings, of Irish history, politics and culture, Postnationalist Ireland challenges rather than offends and offers a fragile strand of hope for our future.' - The Irish News
