IRELAND

by Michael Viney

Ireland conjures up images of nature's sweeping coastlines, rolling green hills, and secluded peat bogs and marshlands. A place of legendary beauty, it is also a land with a rich natural history. Michael Viney invites us to discover the geologic forces that created the island, peer into the famous bone caves that hold unique clues about animals from long ago, and experience the dramatic scenes of the cliff-lined coast and tempestuous seas.

Viney begins deep in the past, when rivers of molten rock and enormous glaciers stripped the land bare. Soon after the glaciers retreated, the island was transformed into a fresh, new landscape, home to an intriguing variety of plants and animals, and an environment that has cultivated a rich human history and inspired countless myths. Infused with the lyricism of Irish prose, A Smithsonian Natural History is indispensable for anyone seeking to understand the natural beauty of the Emerald Isle.


From the Trade Paperback edition.

Genres: Nonfiction, History

328 pages, Hardcover

First published March 17, 2003

Reviews

[Dmitry · Rating 5 out of 5]

Incredibly interesting for a person who travelled in the Republic, who saw even minor manors, ruins of abbeys and really loves walking over green hills and periodically get slump into a bog here or there.
This is non-fiction with an immensive baud rate of information per every symbol/word. Describes the natural history from the formation of the island in Pangea to modern-day policies.
It pictures the image of a glacier over Ben Bulben that was 600 meters high and tundra with rare shrubs and huge deers running over it. Hard to imaging these days, but now it floats in my mind every time in Yeat's county. There is also an answer on how did it happen that after the hunger Irish forests got massively destroyed. What's also very valuable to me, without any excessive sympathy to new Irish State and EU, it describes the fallacies of Soviet-style destruction of bogs, sponsored by European money as well as the creation of channels that eliminated many turloughs (limestone lakes) with their unique habitat.
I definitely going to re-read the book again, it's written with such love and sympathy to Irish nature.

[Jessie · Rating 5 out of 5]

This isn't the kind of book you read for pleasure, but I thought it was absolutely fascinating and brilliantly researched. I referred back to it many times throughout the process of writing my new MG novel.