“Gibbons examines how the aesthetic innovations in James Joyce’s Ulysses reflect the political turmoil of Ireland’s 1916 Easter Rising and subsequent War of Independence . . . with some eye-opening insights.”

Publishers Weekly

“Gibbons may well be Ireland’s most brilliant literary and cultural critic: a distinctive voice and a decisive eye. Here, as always, Gibbons’s commentary ebbs around observed details with a verve worthy of Benjamin, as he makes clear not only that Joyce’s work was revolutionary but also that it was recognized as such by some of the revolutionaries themselves. This is an immensely rich and suggestive work, an instant classic of Irish literary criticism."

Enda Duffy, University of California, Santa Barbara

"This book positively bristles with intelligence and erudition. Gibbons reads Ulysses and the Easter Rising as compelling instances of an alliance between political radicalism and formal/technical innovation. At the same time, he decisively rewrites our understanding of Ulysses’s reception history, demonstrating that many of Joyce’s first interpreters saw his literary experiments as direct engagements with Ireland’s turbulent political history.”

Marjorie Howes, Boston College

“In this pioneering investigation, Gibbons has convincingly reinterpreted the Easter Rising as a global and modernizing event. His Joycean cast of characters—artists, freedom fighters, and a surprising number who were both—highlights the cultural aspects of the 1916 Rising in a new modernist and international vein.”

Mary E. Daly, University College Dublin