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Conor Cruise O'Brien

  • Books By Conor Cruise O'Brien

A Concise History of Ireland

The Great Melody: A Thematic Biography of Edmund Burke

The Siege: The Saga of Israel and Zionism

Long Affair Thomas Jefferson and the Frenc

Albert Camus

  • Heskel M. Haddad
  • Stephen Lewis
  • Eitan Haber
  • Anita Miller
  • Mordecai Paldiel
  • Tarek Fatah
  • Kendall Crolius
  • David M. Gitlitz
  • Stefan Glowacz
  • Matthew Hollis
  • Israel Ṿaʻadat ha-ḥaḳirah la-ḥaḳirat ha-eruʻim be-maḥanot ha-peliṭim be-Berut
  • Michael Pollak
  • Józef Garliński
  • Jordan Miller
  • Noah Strycker
  • Weddig Fricke
  • David J. Azrieli
  • Sigalit Zetouni
  • Stefan Glowacs

Books by Conor Cruise O'Brien

A Concise History of Ireland 0500273790 Book Cover

Conor Cruise O'Brien

$ 4.69 - $ 11.29

The Great Melody: A Thematic Biography of Edmund Burke 0226616517 Book Cover

$ 5.39 - $ 17.79

The Siege: The Saga of Israel and Zionism 0671633104 Book Cover

$ 11.39 - $ 33.69

Long Affair Thomas Jefferson and the Frenc 0712666834 Book Cover

$ 6.49 - $ 34.63

Albert Camus 0006322549 Book Cover

$ 6.09 - $ 12.49

Across Three Oceans 0246123095 Book Cover

Across Three Oceans

$ 13.09 - $ 155.89

Ancestral Voices: Religion and Nationalism in Ireland 0226616525 Book Cover

Ancestral Voices: Religion and Nationalism in Ireland

One the Eve of the Millennuim: The Future of Democracy Through and Age of Unreason 0028740947 Book Cover

One the Eve of the Millennuim: The Future of Democracy Through and Age of Unreason

$ 6.79 - $ 15.49

First in Peace: How George Washington Set the Course for America 0306816199 Book Cover

First in Peace: How George Washington Set the Course for America

States of Ireland 0394471172 Book Cover

States of Ireland

$ 5.09 - $ 15.89

The Enduring Edmund Burke: Bicentennial Essays 1882926161 Book Cover

The Enduring Edmund Burke: Bicentennial Essays

Edmund Burke (Vintage Lives) 0099433443 Book Cover

Edmund Burke (Vintage Lives)

Out of Stock

Passion & Cunning: Essays On Nationalism, Terrorism & Revolution 0671667246 Book Cover

Passion & Cunning: Essays On Nationalism, Terrorism & Revolution

To Katanga and back: A UN case history B000K0C166 Book Cover

To Katanga and back: A UN case history

God Land: Reflections on Religion and Nationalism 0674330161 Book Cover

God Land: Reflections on Religion and Nationalism

Memoir: My Life and Themes 0815410646 Book Cover

Memoir: My Life and Themes

$ 10.69 - $ 20.09

The Nobel century 1855925168 Book Cover

The Nobel century

Suspecting Glance (The T. S. Eliot memorial lectures) 0571324509 Book Cover

Suspecting Glance (The T. S. Eliot memorial lectures)

The Shaping of Modern Ireland 0710069014 Book Cover

The Shaping of Modern Ireland

THE UNITED NATIONS SACRED DRAMA [ 1st ] B004U6SGV0 Book Cover

THE UNITED NATIONS SACRED DRAMA [ 1st ]

The United Nations: sacred drama 0090857909 Book Cover

The United Nations: sacred drama

Maria Cross B0000CI8I7 Book Cover

Maria Cross

Writers and Politics - 1st US Edition/1st Printing

ALBERT CAMUS OF EUROPE AND AFRICA B000RB5RVE Book Cover

ALBERT CAMUS OF EUROPE AND AFRICA

Early Writings of Conor Cruise O'Brien (Irish Research Series, 6) 1930901062 Book Cover

Early Writings of Conor Cruise O'Brien (Irish Research Series, 6)

Murderous angels: A political tragedy and comedy in black and white B001IOL880 Book Cover

Murderous angels: A political tragedy and comedy in black and white

Herod, reflections on political violence 0091331900 Book Cover

Herod, reflections on political violence

Writers And Politics B0000CMTJR Book Cover

Writers And Politics

Writers and Politics 0571324258 Book Cover

Writers and Politics

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Book Reviews on...

By conor cruise o’brien.

I think it’s very important, in order to understand how anti-Semitism morphs into the political arena, that one understands the establishment of the state of Israel. Of all the books on Israel and the Middle East, for me, Conor Cruise O’Brien’s book is a classic.

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“In order to understand anti-Semitism in the English-speaking world you need to understand its growth and development in the UK.” Read more...

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Abraham Foxman , Lawyer

Conor Cruise O’Brien at 100

December 26, 2017

As he liked to remind us, Conor Cruise O’Brien was born on the day after the Balfour Declaration of November 2, 1917. He might have added that he made his entrance four days before the Bolshevik Revolution, as well as during the closing stages of what Winston Churchill called “the ghastly crime of Passchendaele,” and the collapse of the Italian army at Caporetto; as Lady Bracknell might have said, November 1917 was a month crowded with incident. And he was born in Dublin, at a time when Ireland was in turmoil following the Easter Rising the year before. 

The legacies of every one of those events—the Great War, the Rising, the October Revolution, and Balfour—played a part in Cruise O’Brien’s career. His own life was crowded with incident to a startling degree, as critic, historian, diplomatist, pro-consul, politician, and journalist, which included writing for  The New York Review of Books  for many years. While he was an official of the Irish government in the 1940s and 1950s, he moonlighted as a literary critic, writing as “Donat O’Donnell,” the pen name under which he published his first book,  Maria Cross , a collection of essays on Catholic writers. 

More important was his first book as an historian, adapting his doctoral dissertation into a study of the great nineteenth-century leader of Irish Home Rule,  Parnell and His Party  (1957). I recently took part in a symposium to mark the centenary of Cruise O’Brien’s birth, at his alma mater, Trinity College, Dublin, and it opened with a discussion of “O’Brien and the Writing of History.” Despite its detailed scholarship, that book is still colored by the author’s nationalist sympathies—in particular, toward republican illusions about the causes of partition—despite the fact that Cruise O’Brien knew, partly through his first wife who was from a Belfast Presbyterian family, more than Parnell the patrician Protestant about the reality of Ulster, where, then and now, the Protestants were a community, not a class. This was something that Cruise O’Brien came to understand better than most southerners.

Not long after his Parnell book was published, Cruise O’Brien’s life was changed by a dramatic episode that made him internationally famous, both revered and reviled—something that became a persistent theme in his life. He was an Irish delegate at the United Nations in New York in 1961 when he was plucked from obscurity by Dag Hammarskjöld, the cerebral Secretary-General of the UN (and “one of the very few people who had read  Maria Cross ,” Cruise O’Brien observed drily), and sent to deal with a crisis in the newly independent Congo, involving the secession of the mineral-rich southern provinces of Katanga with barely disguised support from Belgium, the former colonial power. With the CIA also playing a sinister role in the affair, the UN assignment was challenging, to say the least. Doomed or not, the operation quickly turned into a fiasco: a painful one for Cruise O’Brien, and a tragic one when Hammarskjöld himself was killed in an air crash in suspicious circumstances. Michael Kennedy, the editor of “Documents on Irish Foreign Policy,” an initiative of the Royal Irish Academy, was highly critical of the part Cruise O’Brien played in the UN mission. The official role of the small number of Irish troops responsible to him was the thankless one known as peace-keeping. But when they found themselves surrounded by vastly superior forces, Cruise O’Brien ordered them into action. It was an episode that demonstrated that military leadership was one of the few talents he did not have. Kennedy was also unimpressed by the account of the mission Cruise O’Brien gave in  To Katanga and Back , the 1962 book he wrote to defend himself and settle scores. 

At least the termination of his diplomatic career meant that Cruise O’Brien could resume his literary and journalistic one. At that time, he became a darling of the left—later to be much disappointed—when he stood, or wrote, on the anti-colonialist and anti-anticommunist platform. In 1966, on the fiftieth anniversary of the Easter Rising, Cruise O’Brien was still writing about it as an unfulfilled dream. He quoted with approval Franz Fanon’s defense of cleansing revolutionary bloodshed, as well as the Irish nationalist William O’Brien who said that “violence is the only way of ensuring a hearing for moderation.” And in his 1970 book on Albert Camus, Cruise O’Brien attacked the French writer for his equivocations over Algeria. 

“Whatever Happened to Conor Cruise O’Brien’s  Camus ?” asked Max McGuinness of Columbia University, and “Whatever Happened…?” was a question often asked about Cruise O’Brien, as his political position shifted and some who had once cheered him then jeered. After an interlude as a professor in New York, Cruise O’Brien returned to his native Dublin and entered Irish politics. At first, he was “almost a rock star,” as Stephen Kelly of Liverpool Hope University put it, among the everyday politicians of the Irish Labour Party when he entered parliament, in 1969. By then, as the Troubles were beginning, Irish politics were dominated by “the North,” even more so when Cruise O’Brien joined the cabinet of Liam Cosgrave’s coalition government from 1973 to 1977. In 1972, Cruise O’Brien had published  States of Ireland , a book that influenced a generation by the way it dissected and demolished the ritualistic “United Ireland” nationalism that the southern Irish had learned under the long rule of Éamon de Valera. That critique and his resolute opposition to any compromise with violent republicanism meant that Cruise O’Brien was, as he lamented, “altogether out of tune with my [cabinet] colleagues over Northern Ireland.”  

His career in politics came to an abrupt end in the 1977 election, when the Cosgrave government was defeated and he lost his seat. Returning to journalism, Cruise O’Brien worked for an eventful few years as the editor of  The Observer  in London, when he was again out of tune with some of his colleagues, and still more with Tiny Rowland, the shady financier who bought  The  Observer  in 1981. After Cruise O’Brien left the paper, on which he had bestowed some of his best journalism, he was a columnist for a variety of English and Irish papers. Throughout, he maintained not only a bitter hostility to the IRA, but also a sustained critique of the republican ideology to which almost all Irish people of Catholic-nationalist origin paid at least lip service. In a brilliant 1982 essay for  The New York Review , he called it “a lie that clings to us and burns, like the shirt of Nessus.” 

Although Cruise O’Brien denounced nationalism in his own country, he adopted another’s in the shape of Zionism, which led to his absorbing, if one-sided, book  The Siege  (1986). He accepted the premises of Zionism somewhat uncritically, and paid too little attention to the Palestinian Arabs, who had been the majority population of Palestine when Zionist settlement began, and to the possibility that they had suffered an injustice. This unlikely displacement of patriotic feeling sprang partly from his own philo-semitism, and partly from his tendency to conflate all terrorists (notably, the IRA and the PLO), but also from an undoubted  esprit de contradiction : he took up the cause of Zionism and Israel just as the liberal left turned against them. 

Partisan as he was, Cruise O’Brien adhered to his own code of intellectual honesty in his study of Israel. In the 1920s and 1930s, the Zionist movement was split between the Labor Zionists under David Ben-Gurion and the right-wing Revisionists led by Vladimir Jabotinsky (the forebears of Benjamin Netanyahu’s Likud Party). Cruise O’Brien pointed out in an essay published in his 1988 collection  Passion and Cunning  what many liberal supporters of Israel have tried to overlook—that in their attitudes toward the Palestinian Arabs, the only real difference was that Jabotinsky expressed himself with a public candor that seemed impolitic to Ben-Gurion.

By the end of the two-day symposium at Trinity, there was a more measured and nuanced appreciation of this extraordinary man than there had been during much of his life, or even at the time of his death. Cruise O’Brien has been called one of those people whose role it is to be brilliantly wrong. He was certainly wrong some of the time, as in his anti-anti-Communist days when he speciously downplayed the character of Soviet tyranny, or later when he, likewise speciously, opposed a boycott of South Africa, which gave his enemies an opportunity to label him, wrongly, as an apologist for apartheid. But the two most impassioned speakers suggested that he was right often enough. The Ghanaian writer Cameron Duodo said that, whatever else may be said about the Katanga episode, Cruise O’Brien’s memory was revered in Africa to this day as the man who had stood up to the European imperialists and the Americans. And the Irish writer and columnist Eoghan Harris, an erstwhile republican himself, praised Cruise O’Brien for the courage he had shown in his opposition to violence. 

Although some of Cruise O’Brien’s gloomy prognostications about Northern Ireland appear to have been belied by events, the latest impasses—over devolved government there and over the border after Brexit—suggest that a dose of pessimism is still in order. But in Africa and Ulster—those locales of the defining episodes of his life—was he wrong at the right time, or right at the wrong time? 

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Ancestral Voices: Religion and Nationalism in Ireland (9781853714290) by O'Brien, Conor Cruise

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BET Media Submits for More Emmys Than Ever Before: Ms. Pat, ‘Average Joe,’ ‘Diarra From Detroit’ and More Seek Nominations (EXCLUSIVE)

By Clayton Davis

Clayton Davis

Senior Awards Editor

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The Ms. Pat Show - Average Joe - Diarra from Detroit

BET wants some Emmys .

In a year where major streamers and legacy networks dominate the Emmy conversations, BET Media Group, which includes BET+ and BET Studios, has had a record-breaking year for its critically acclaimed content, such as Lee Daniels’ racy sitcom “The Ms. Pat Show,” the drama thriller “Average Joe” and the dark comedy “Diarra From Detroit.” All in all, the legacy broadcast media network has submitted in over 35 Primetime Emmy categories, the most in its history.

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“This year was extraordinary for BET Media Group in both scripted and unscripted programming, and we are proud to expand our lineup of FYC-eligible content,” said Scott Mills, President and CEO of BET Media Group. “Critically acclaimed shows like ‘Average Joe,’ ‘Diarra from Detroit,’ and ‘The Ms. Pat Show’ are wonderful examples of the quality, breadth, and depth of the authentic stories we produce with our amazing creative partners.”

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Writers and Politics

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Conor Cruise O'Brien

Writers and Politics Paperback – February 19, 2015

Purchase options and add-ons.

Arguably Conor Cruise O'Brien's most influential and admired book was this brilliant collection of essays - on history, literature and public affairs - first published in 1965.

'I can still remember the excitement with which I discovered a copy of Writers and Politics , in a provincial library in Devonshire thirty years ago. Nobody who tries to write about either of those subjects, or about "the bloody crossroads" where they have so often met, can disown a debt to the Cruiser.' Christopher Hitchens, London Review of Books

'When a liberal can write such pieces as "Mercy and Mercenaries", "Journal de Combat", "Varieties of Anti-Communism", "A New Yorker Critic", and "Generation of Saints", an important voice has returned to our culture.' Raymond Williams, Guardian

  • Print length 288 pages
  • Language English
  • Publisher Faber & Faber
  • Publication date February 19, 2015
  • Dimensions 5.51 x 0.65 x 8.5 inches
  • ISBN-10 0571324258
  • ISBN-13 978-0571324255
  • See all details

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The Siege: The Saga of Israel and Zionism

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  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Faber & Faber; Main edition (February 19, 2015)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 288 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0571324258
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0571324255
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 12.5 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.51 x 0.65 x 8.5 inches
  • #3,162 in Quotation Reference Books
  • #12,682 in Essays (Books)

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  1. Books by Conor Cruise O'Brien (Author of Camus)

    Rate this book. Clear rating. 1 of 5 stars 2 of 5 stars 3 of 5 stars 4 of 5 stars 5 of 5 stars. « previous 1 2 next ». * Note: these are all the books on Goodreads for this author. To add more books, click here . Conor Cruise O'Brien has 57 books on Goodreads with 3881 ratings. Conor Cruise O'Brien's most popular book is Camus.

  2. Conor Cruise O'Brien: books, biography, latest update

    Follow Conor Cruise O'Brien and explore their bibliography from Amazon.com's Conor Cruise O'Brien Author Page. ... Books, art & collectibles: ACX Audiobook Publishing Made Easy: Sell on Amazon Start a Selling Account: Amazon Business Everything For Your Business : Amazon Fresh Groceries & More

  3. Conor Cruise O'Brien

    Donal Conor David Dermot Donat Cruise O'Brien (3 November 1917 - 18 December 2008), often nicknamed "The Cruiser", was an Irish diplomat, politician, writer, historian and academic, who served as Minister for Posts and Telegraphs from 1973 to 1977, a Senator for Dublin University from 1977 to 1979, a Teachta Dála (TD) for the Dublin North-East constituency from 1969 to 1977, and a Member of ...

  4. The Siege: The Saga of Israel and Zionism: O'Brien, Conor Cruise

    But Connor Cruise O'Brien took about 2 years to do research in Israel and then further time to write a serious book that is not in love with Jews and Israel, but just observes the Jews and Israel with amazement. It is not an anti-semitic book, but it is not a pro-Israel radical political statement either. It is just a refreshing look at a ...

  5. List of books by author Conor Cruise O'Brien

    Looking for books by Conor Cruise O'Brien? See all books authored by Conor Cruise O'Brien, including Long Affair Thomas Jefferson and the Frenc, and The Siege: The Saga of Israel and Zionism, and more on ThriftBooks.com.

  6. Ancestral Voices: Religion and Nationalism in Ireland: O'Brien, Conor

    Conor Cruise O'Brien (1917-2008) was a leading Irish intellectual of his generation and had a distinguished career in public life as a diplomat, politician, government minister, writer, newspaper editor, critic, and scholar. He published numerous books in subjects such as history, biography, politics, and religion.

  7. The Siege

    by Conor Cruise O'Brien. I think it's very important, in order to understand how anti-Semitism morphs into the political arena, that one understands the establishment of the state of Israel. Of all the books on Israel and the Middle East, for me, Conor Cruise O'Brien's book is a classic.

  8. Conor Cruise O'Brien

    Conor Cruise O'Brien (born November 3, 1917, Dublin, Ireland—died December 18, 2008, Howth, near Dublin) was an Irish diplomat, politician, educator, and journalist who was one of Ireland's most provocative political and intellectual figures. Although he was a fierce advocate of his homeland, O'Brien was a strong critic of Irish Republican Army violence and of what he considered the ...

  9. Conor Cruise O'Brien

    Conor Cruise O'Brien. Conor Cruise O'Brien (1917-2008) was an Irish historian and politician. He was elected to the Irish parliament in 1969 and served as a Minister from 1973 until 1977. ... Best of The New York Review, plus books, events, and other items of interest. Or, see all newsletter options here. Email Address. Continue.

  10. Camus

    Conor Cruise O'Brien. Faber & Faber, Feb 19, 2015 - Religion - 112 pages. Essential reading for old fans and new admirers of Albert Camus' classic quarantine novel THE PLAGUE - a new bestseller amidst the coronavirus pandemic. ' Brilliant .'. The Times.

  11. Writers and Politics: Conor Cruise O'Brien: 9780140027334: Amazon.com

    Arguably Conor Cruise O'Brien's most influential and admired book was this brilliant collection of essays - on history, literature and public affairs - first published in 1965. 'I can still remember the excitement with which I discovered a copy of Writers and Politics , in a provincial library in Devonshire thirty years ago.

  12. Writers and Politics : Essays and Criticism

    Arguably Conor Cruise O'Brien's most influential and admired book was this brilliant collection of essays - on history, literature and public affairs - first published in 1965. 'I can still remember the excitement with which I discovered a copy of Writers and Politics, in a provincial library in Devonshire thirty years ago. Nobody who tries to write about either of those subjects, or about ...

  13. Passion and Cunning: and Other Essays

    Books. Passion and Cunning: and Other Essays. Conor Cruise O'Brien's brilliant and hugely controversial 1965 essay on the political convictions of W. B. Yeats is the title-piece for this superb 1988 collection of pieces on politics, religion, nationalism and terrorism. 'O'Brien is a man of strong views, and he writes with verve and wit.

  14. Conor Cruise O'Brien at 100

    David Levine. As he liked to remind us, Conor Cruise O'Brien was born on the day after the Balfour Declaration of November 2, 1917. He might have added that he made his entrance four days before the Bolshevik Revolution, as well as during the closing stages of what Winston Churchill called "the ghastly crime of Passchendaele," and the collapse of the Italian army at Caporetto; as Lady ...

  15. Conor Cruise O'Brien: used books, rare books and new books

    Passion and Cunning: Essays on Nationalism, Terrorism and Revolution. by Conor Cruise O'Brien. ISBN 9780671667245 (978--671-66724-5) Hardcover, Simon & Schuster, 1988. Find This Book › Find signed collectible books: 'Passion and Cunning: Essays on Nationalism, Terrorism and Revolution'. States of Ireland.

  16. Herod: O'Brien, Conor Cruise: 9780571324521: Amazon.com: Books

    Herod. Paperback - March 19, 2015. In Herod: Reflections on Political Violence (first published in 1978) Conor Cruise O'Brien collects a number of essays alongside three short plays that dramatise political arguments through the infamous figure of the Roman king of Judaea for whom the collection is named. 'A great book.

  17. Conor Cruise O'Brien

    About the Author Conor Cruise O'Brien (1917-2008) was a pre-eminent author and one of Ireland's leading intellectuals. His magisterial work about Jefferson's presidency, The Long Affair, was published to international acclaim in 1996.

  18. BET Emmys Submissions 2024: Ms. Pat, Deon Cole, Diarra Kilpatrick

    BET has submitted for more Emmys than ever before, for series including "Average Joe," "Diarra From Detroit" and "The Ms. Pat Show."

  19. Writers and Politics: O'Brien, Conor Cruise, Kamm, Oliver

    Writers and Politics. Paperback - February 19, 2015. by Conor Cruise O'Brien (Author), Oliver Kamm (Introduction) 4.2 12 ratings. See all formats and editions. Arguably Conor Cruise O'Brien's most influential and admired book was this brilliant collection of essays - on history, literature and public affairs - first published in 1965.