"The Orrery papers, preserved in the National Library, Dublin (mss. 32-36), and now for the first time published, relate for the most part to a period of about 30 years from the Restoration to the outbreak of the Williamite war ... The greater part of the matter in the collection has been condensed and summarazed."--Introduction.

This is a groundbreaking study of Cork's rise from insignificance to international importance as a city and port, and of South Munster's development from agricultural hinterland to one of early modern Ireland's wealthiest regions and a symbol of a new commercial order. Reconstructing the framework of a pre-modern regional society in a way never before attempted for Ireland, Old World Colony integrates social, economic, and political history across the heartlands of "the Hidden Ireland" from the seventeenth century's civil wars to Catholic emancipation in the 1820s. Dickson shows that colonization and commerce transformed the region, but at a price: even in South Munster's formative years, the problems of pre-Famine Ireland-gross income inequality and land scarcity-were already evident. Co-published with Cork University Press, Ireland Wisconsin edition for sale only in the U.S., its territories and possessions, and Canada. "A masterful account. . . . So finely nuanced and meticulously researched that it effectively raises the historiographical bar for Irish regional history."--James G. Patterson, H-Atlantic, H-Net Reviews

John Kerrigan's unique study of 17th-century anglophone literature explores remarkable work produced in Wales, Scotland, and Ireland and shows how preoccupied Shakespeare, Milton, and Marvell were with the interactions between the peoples of the British-Irish archipelago. This major book resets the terms of the debate for scholars of the period.