One of the most famous people in Ireland’s struggle for independence is Daniel O’Connell, a 19th-century politician who led the charge for Catholic emancipation as well as the effort to repeal Britain’s Act of Union. Learn about his activism, and then see how the Great Famine completely devastated the nation.

The Colosseum is a monument to Roman imperial power and cruelty. Its graceful lines and harmonious proportions concealed a highly efficient design and advanced construction methods that made hundreds of arches out of 100,000 tons of stone. In its elliptical arena, tens of thousands of gladiators, slaves, prisoners and wild animals met their deaths. Ancient texts report lions and elephants emerging from beneath the floor, as if by magic, to ravage...

"An evening of non-stop laughter." —London Sunday Express.This hilarious farce, which set box office records in London and Paris before coming to Broadway with the inimitable Norman Wisdom as featured player, makes enormous good fun of attempted infidelity and the tangle of misunderstandings which this can—and does—lead to. "What does a sophisticated audience do about this assault on its culture? It rolls in the aisles…the folks just let go,...

The Playboy of the Western World is now regarded as a classic of Modernism and one of Ireland’s defining plays, but when it premiered in 1907, it shocked Dublin and inspired riots. See what made this play so controversial to its original audience—and why the play is a truly great work of art.

Irish playwrights faced a conundrum in the 19th century: they could write in Irish and remain relatively obscure, or they could find success by adopting English, the language of the conqueror. Examine how George Bernard Shaw and Oscar Wilde navigated their Irish identity on the London stage. Professor Conner provides political and artistic context to their major works.

Find out about a fascinating conflict largely unknown today. The Baltic Forest War raged in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania for many years after World War II. Learn about the guerrilla fighters who hid in the forests and attacked Soviet security forces—and then examine the Soviet tactics to stop them..

We live in a world which no longer questions itself, which lives from one day to another managing successive crises, without knowing where it is going and without trying to plan the itinerary'...It is only now that we are beginning to realise how accurately these words describe the contemporary global society. But it has been fourteen years since Zygmunt Bauman wrote them in his In search of politics. This foresightedness is not unusual for someone...

Jo is a working-class British teenager, living with her drink-sodden, libertine mother. Denied affection by her selfish parent, Jo is pushed further in the background when her mum impulsively marries her latest boyfriend. The girl takes a job at a shoe store, then moves in with her kindly homosexual employer.. The two lost souls live in harmony until Jo becomes pregnant after a casual affair with a black sailor. Her flatmate comes to the rescue by...

A soldier, returning from the wars, sits beside a sunlit pool and plays his violin. The music attracts the attention of the Devil, in the guise of a butterfly collector, who asks for the violin. The soldier refuses and the Devil offers a book of riches in exchange. The soldier accepts, but the Devil finds he cannot play the violin and persuades the soldier to give him lessons in his splendid mansion.. On returning to his native village, the soldier...

There are nearly 16,000 fiestas in Spain each year featuring the brutal abuse of animals. Organized around religious observances, these festivals bring together entire towns, including children, and become celebrations of unbelievable cruelty. 60,000 animals estimated to suffer each year during these “Fiestas of Blood”.. Bulls are impaled with gasoline-soaked spikes which are set afire. Some are stabbed, tied, or thrown into the water. Pigeons,...