**
A magisterial account of one of the worst disasters to strike
humankind--the Great Irish Potato Famine--conveyed as lyrical narrative
history from the acclaimed author of The Great Mortality
**
In this masterful, comprehensive account of the Irish Potato Famine,
delivered with novelistic flair, Kelly gives us not only the startling
facts of this disaster--one of the worst to strike mankind, killing
twice as many lives as the American Civil War--but examines the
intersection of political greed, bacterial infection, religious
intolerance, and racism that made it possible. Kelly brings new material
to his analysis of relevant political factors during the years leading
up to the famine, and the extent to which Britain's nation-building
policies exacerbated the mounting crisis. Despite the shocking,
infuriating implications of his findings, The Graves Are Walking is
ultimately a story of triumph--of one people's ability to remake
themselves in a new land in the face of the unthinkable.