The 1641 rebellion is one of the seminal events in early modern Irish and British history. Its divisive legacy, based primarily on the sharply contested allegation that the rebellion began with a general massacre of Protestant settlers, is still evident in Ireland today. Indeed, the 1641 'massacres', like the battles at the Boyne (1690) and Somme (1916), played a key role in creating and sustaining a collective Protestant/ British identity in Ulster, in much the same way that the subsequent Cromwellian conquest in the 1650s helped forge a new Irish Catholic national identity.

Following a successful hardback edition, Ó Siochrú and OIhlmeyer's popular title is now available in paperback. The original and wide-ranging themes chosen by leading international scholars for this volume will ensure that this edited collection becomes required reading for all those interested in the history of early modern Europe. It will also appeal to those engaged in early colonial studies in the Atlantic world and beyond, as the volume adopts a genuinely comparative approach throughout, examining developments in a broad global context.

1. Introduction: 1641: fresh contexts and perspectives - Jane Ohlmeyer and Micheál Ó Siochrú
2. Early modern violence from memory to history: a historiographical essay - Ethan Shagan
3. The 1641 massacres - Aidan Clarke
4. 1641 in a colonial context - Nicholas Canny
5. Towards a cultural geography of the 1641 Rising/Rebellion - Willie Smyth
6. Out of the blue? Provincial unrest in Ireland before 1641 - David Edwards
7. News from Ireland: Catalan, Portuguese and Castilian pamphlets on the Confederate War in Ireland - Hiram Morgan
8. Performative Violence? Patterns of political violence in the 1641 Depositions - John Walter
9. Atrocities in the Thirty Years War - Peter Wilson
10. Why remember terror? Memories of violence in the Dutch Revolt - Judith Pollman & Erika Kuijpers
11. Language and conflict in the Wars of Religion - Mark Greengrass
12. How to make a successful plantation: colonial experiment in America - Karen Kupperman
13. An Irish Black legend? 1641 and the Iberian Atlantic - Igor Pérez Tostado
Afterword: settler colonies, ethnoreligious violence, and historical documentation: comparative reflections on Southeast Asia and Ireland - Ben Kiernan
Index

Editors

Jane Ohlmeyer is Erasmus Smith's Professor of Modern History at Trinity College, Dublin

Micheál Ó Siochrú is Associate Professor of History at Trinity College, Dublin