Luke Gibbons is Professor of English, and Film, Theatre and Television at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana. He has written extensively on Irish literature, the visual arts and popular culture. He is the author of Transformations in Irish Culture (1996) and The Quiet Man (2002), and co-author of Cinema and Ireland (1988).

Review of the hardback: '… dazzling investigation of the Irish roots of Burke's thought which ranged from ideas of terror and the sublime to the wounded body and the Great Famine. An intellectual feast.' Terry Eagleton, Irish Times

• Introduction: Edmund Burke and the colonial sublime; Part I. The Politics of Pain: 1. 'This King of Terrors'; Edmund Burke and the aesthetics of executions; 2. Philoctetes and colonial Ireland: the wounded body as national narrative; Part II. Sympathy and the Sublime; 3. The sympathetic sublime: Edmund Burke, Adam Smith and the politics of pain; 4. Did Edmund Burke cause the great Famine? Political economy and colonialism; Part III. Colonialism and Enlightenment: 5. 'Tranquillity tinged with terror': the sublime and agrarian insurgency; 6. Burke and colonialism: the enlightenment and cultural diversity; Part IV. Progress and Primitivism: 7. 'Subtilised into savages': Burke, progress and primitivism; 8. 'The return of the native': The United Irishmen, culture and colonialism.

Luke Gibbons is Professor of English, and Film, Theatre and Television at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana. He has written extensively on Irish literature, the visual arts and popular culture. He is the author of Transformations in Irish Culture (1996) and The Quiet Man (2002), and co-author of Cinema and Ireland (1988).

Review of the hardback: '… dazzling investigation of the Irish roots of Burke's thought which ranged from ideas of terror and the sublime to the wounded body and the Great Famine. An intellectual feast.' Terry Eagleton, Irish Times

• Introduction: Edmund Burke and the colonial sublime; Part I. The Politics of Pain: 1. 'This King of Terrors'; Edmund Burke and the aesthetics of executions; 2. Philoctetes and colonial Ireland: the wounded body as national narrative; Part II. Sympathy and the Sublime; 3. The sympathetic sublime: Edmund Burke, Adam Smith and the politics of pain; 4. Did Edmund Burke cause the great Famine? Political economy and colonialism; Part III. Colonialism and Enlightenment: 5. 'Tranquillity tinged with terror': the sublime and agrarian insurgency; 6. Burke and colonialism: the enlightenment and cultural diversity; Part IV. Progress and Primitivism: 7. 'Subtilised into savages': Burke, progress and primitivism; 8. 'The return of the native': The United Irishmen, culture and colonialism.

Luke Gibbons is Professor of English, and Film, Theatre and Television at the University of Notre Dame, Indiana. He has written extensively on Irish literature, the visual arts and popular culture. He is the author of Transformations in Irish Culture (1996) and The Quiet Man (2002), and co-author of Cinema and Ireland (1988).

Review of the hardback: '… dazzling investigation of the Irish roots of Burke's thought which ranged from ideas of terror and the sublime to the wounded body and the Great Famine. An intellectual feast.' Terry Eagleton, Irish Times

• Introduction: Edmund Burke and the colonial sublime; Part I. The Politics of Pain: 1. 'This King of Terrors'; Edmund Burke and the aesthetics of executions; 2. Philoctetes and colonial Ireland: the wounded body as national narrative; Part II. Sympathy and the Sublime; 3. The sympathetic sublime: Edmund Burke, Adam Smith and the politics of pain; 4. Did Edmund Burke cause the great Famine? Political economy and colonialism; Part III. Colonialism and Enlightenment: 5. 'Tranquillity tinged with terror': the sublime and agrarian insurgency; 6. Burke and colonialism: the enlightenment and cultural diversity; Part IV. Progress and Primitivism: 7. 'Subtilised into savages': Burke, progress and primitivism; 8. 'The return of the native': The United Irishmen, culture and colonialism.