Declan Kiberd, The Irish Writer and the World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005. 332 pages. STG 45 [pounds sterling] (hardback), 14.99 [pounds sterling] (paperback). Few have shaped Irish Studies as decisively as Declan Kiberd. A scholar of Synge in the 1970s, he eventually gathered his thoughts on colonialism, nationalism, and gender into his blockbuster Inventing Ireland (1995), a book which became a standard text in the academy while also winning a general readership. The compendious Irish Classics (2000) was similarly diverse in its appeal. A new book from Kiberd is an event in the field.
