The late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries have long been seen as a foundational period for modern Irish political traditions such as nationalism, republicanism and unionism. The Case of Ireland offers a fresh account of Ireland's neglected role in European debates about commerce and empire in what was a global era of war and revolution. Drawing on a broad range of writings from merchants, agrarian improvers, philosophers, politicians and revolutionaries across Europe, this book shows how Ireland became a field of conflict and projection between rival visions of politics in commercial society, associated with the warring empires of Britain and France. It offers a new perspective on the crisis and transformation of the British Empire at the end of the eighteenth century, and restores Ireland to its rightful place at the centre of European intellectual history.

'An impressive book that deserves a wide readership.' History Ireland
'By demonstrating the significance of Ireland in the politics and debates of the European intellectual community during the last half of the eighteenth century and first half of the nineteenth, Stafford's book makes a substantial contribution to the task of understanding the history of Europe as a whole. It should be read by anyone interested in this history.' Sam Clark, International Journal of Comparative Sociology
'… should be read by anyone interested in European history, political, socioeconomic, and cultural, in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.' Paul Tonks, Journal of Modern History
'Impressive … shows why studying Ireland's complex path to modernity helps us better understand the legacies of these competing ideas about political economy in shaping contemporary post-colonial and global Ireland and its tangled and complex relationship with its nearest neighbor.' Patrick Walsh, American Historical Review

James Stafford studied history at Oxford and Cambridge, completing his doctoral research in 2016. After postdoctoral work in Oxford and Bielefeld he is now Assistant Professor of History at Columbia University. He is a frequent commentator on contemporary British and European politics for a range of outlets, and was co-editor of Renewal: A Journal of Social Democracy from 2015–20.