This pioneering study is the first to describe, on a world-wide basis, the complex phenomenon of the Irish Diaspora. In a thought-provoking, accessible text Akenson examines population movements out of Ireland into Canada, Australia, South Africa, New Zealand, Great Britain and the United States. He sets the importance of the Famine in its context and considers issues such as the significance of women in Irish emigration. His straightforward, comprehensible approach makes this an essential primer for anyone with an interest in ethnic history and the meeting of different cultures.

Donald Harman Akenson, Professor of History at Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, is one of the -world's leading authorities on Irish history. He received his bachelor's degree from Yale and his Ph.D from Harvard. The author of twenty books, including five novels, he is a Fellow of the Royal Society (Canada) and of the Royal Historical Society (U.K.). He has held both a Guggenheim Fellowship and a writing fellowship at Villa Serbelloni, Bellagio, Como. In 1993 he received the prestigious Grawmeyer Award for Ideas Improving World Order, for his book God's People: Covenant and Land in South Africa, Israel and Ulster (1992). In 1996 he was named Molson Prize Laureate; this is Canada's highest cultural award.

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