R. F. Foster is Carroll Professor of Irish History at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of Hertford College, Oxford. His books include Modern Ireland, 1600-1972, Paddy and Mr Punch, The Irish Story, W. B. Yeats (two volumes) and Luck and the Irish.
Terrific . . . It is a measure of his literary skill, as well as
his expertise as a historian, that he is able to counterpoint so
many life stories without sinking into confusion . . . Foster's
prose is urbanely precise and he can pin down character as
memorably as Yeats . . . Foster has the alertness of an Edwardian
novelist to the nuances of class and location . . . depicted with
masterly economy in all its brutality, confusion and courage . . .
Patient, analytical, articulate, this is a book that counts because
it avoids the Irish vice of replacing history with
commemoration
*Guardian*
This book . . . reveals a rich and assorted cast of characters with
a diversity of views and preoccupations - feminism, socialism,
religious diversity, sexual liberalism, the works . . . The beauty
of Vivid Faces is that it is squarely based on the testimonies of
the characters themselves - letters, diaries, articles, books and
later memories - and shows them as they were, not in the light of
what they became, especially those revolutionaries sanctified in
the selective historical memory of the Irish Republic . . . There
are very funny accounts here of how summer schools in the
Irish-speaking west of Ireland were an opportunity for unchaperoned
young people enthusiastically to pair off . . . There can be few
better accounts of [these] people . . . than this book. Foster
writes with unconcealed delight about the foibles of these
wonderful individuals as well as their achievements . . . There
will be any number of accounts of the Easter Rising and its genesis
in the run up to the centenary, but few will be as enjoyable as
this
*Spectator*
Vivid Faces . . . puts forward a most interesting explanation for
the power and influence of the 1916 Rebellion. Indeed, this book,
filled with nuanced interpretation, is likely to change the way we
view the rebellion and the period before and after . . . Foster is
ready to look at love and dreams, fantasy and bewilderment, as he
charts the imaginative lives of the generation that was the first
to cause the British to "clear out", as Yeats beautifully put it .
. . Foster takes it that we know about their military exploits;
what he writes about here is their work as writers and actors and
artists, their love lives, their passionate involvement in the
world that they wished to re-create . . . Foster has managed to
produce the most complete and plausible exploration of the roots of
the 1916 Rebellion and the power it subsequently exerted over the
public imagination. As the centenary approaches, his book will be
essential reading for anyone who wishes to follow the argument
about the Irish revolutionary generation
*New Statesman*
A significant accomplishment that makes a serious case for the
concept of 'generations' in exploring the origins of the Rising . .
. Through personal diaries, letters and journals, [Foster] allows
us to see how these young people lived. What follows is a portrait
of an Ireland that bears little resemblance to the country that
emerged after 1922 . . . Foster's book, in unmatchable prose, is a
must-read
*Times Higher Education*
Powerful and absorbing . . . [Foster] draws on decades of
engagement with cultural history to bring an original, lively and
learned analysis to a fascinating generation . . . Judicious and
empathetic, with no attempt to hide his admiration for their
idealism, he does not fall into the trap of assessing them
acerbically through the lens of the present but allows their own
words to breathe. Much of his account is riveting and skilfully
woven together, with the analysis enlivened by Foster's customary
sparkling prose . . . [he] does a lot to balance male-dominated
accounts of the period . . . Crucially, this is not a book built on
reductive hindsight; instead it gives us a deep and textured
awareness of that "enclosed, self-referencing, hectic world" where
the thinkers lived, worked, reflected and dreamed
*Irish Times*
Roy Foster . . . has achieved what few have managed: an account of
the Irish revolution that captures its quixotic ardour without
succumbing to it . . . Vivid Faces is a wonderful book about
revolution - both the specific and the general. I read it in the
aftermath of Scotland's abortive revolution by referendum and found
Foster's analysis painfully wise
*The Times*
Written by a master-historian, this superbly orchestrated group
portrait of Ireland's 'revolutionary generation' from 1890 to 1923
shows how the independence movement drew its ideas, tactics and
personnel not from peasant outsiders but metropolitan, middle-class
insiders . . . Foster highlights refreshing new perspectives
*Independent*
Extraordinary personal journeys outlined in Foster's richly
detailed evocation of a period of Irish history in which idealism,
bohemianism and artistic creativity went with a resurgence of
militant nationalism and what Foster calls 'the cult of the gun' .
. . Foster's exhaustively researched history delineates the various
streams of cultural and social radicalism that converged in the two
decades leading up to the Irish revolution
*Observer*
Sometimes a history book prompts one to reflect on the past and
present alike. R F Foster, professor of Irish history at Oxford
University, has just published such a text . . . Foster writes so
compellingly
*Guardian*
Written with a stern sense of authority, but simultaneously leaving
room for suggestion, interpretation, debate and nuance, Vivid Faces
is an immensely important analysis of Irish history that will be
used again and again as a reference point for generations to come:
continuing a much-needed healthy debate about what exactly Irish
Republicanism stands for?
*Independent*
It is a relief to read such a study, which takes for granted that
the world is incorrigibly plural, and which immerses itself in the
stuff of passionate human histories
*Telegraph*
The book itself is a valuable collection of a broad range of views
of participants that publishers dared not mention for decades. It
dissects the propaganda to provide an insightful look at the real
contemporary thinking . . . invaluable historical record
*Irish Examiner*
Generous, humane and stylish
*Times Literary Supplement BOOKS OF THE YEAR*
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