Padraic X. Scanlan > Quotes

“Even after the Union, Ireland still measured acreage in two different units, the Cunningham (or Irish) acre, and the plantation (or statute) acre.”
― Padraic X. Scanlan, Rot: An Imperial History of the Irish Famine

“In the nineteenth century, British industry, politics and popular culture became entwined with those of the United States, perhaps the most successful and dynamic slave state in human history”
― Padraic X. Scanlan, Slave Empire: How Slavery Built Modern Britain

“The Irish moral economy was only as old as the potato itself—it was not an ancient way of life but an adaptation to conquest and capitalism. The potatoes given as charity during the day were sometimes stolen back at night. A poor farmer taking conacre was expected to give potatoes without an eye on his own inventory, but widespread theft of potatoes shows that open-handed generosity could have been genuine but could also have been an act to save face and preserve a good name. Or it could have been both. Human beings struggle with contradiction far less than the social sciences predict. [...] The gift economy of the potato was both beyond the market and profoundly influenced by market pressures—for land, for food security, and for rent.”
― Padraic X. Scanlan, Rot: An Imperial History of the Irish Famine

“Civilisation is a notoriously slippery concept, but in the era of the Baptist War and the Emancipation Act it often meant steady labour for low wages.”
― Padraic X. Scanlan, Slave Empire: How Slavery Built Modern Britain

“Civilisation is a notoriously slippery concept, but in the era of the Baptist War and the Emancipation Act it often meant steady labour for low wages. And regardless of the specific shape of emancipation, it was a ‘mighty experiment’ to prove that the laws of free labour were universal, and that enslaved people were capable of civilisation.”
― Padraic X. Scanlan, Slave Empire: How Slavery Built Modern Britain