Product Description
Culture Smart! provides essential information on attitudes, beliefs and behavior in different countries, ensuring that you arrive at your destination aware of basic manners, common courtesies, and sensitive issues. These concise guides tell you what to expect, how to behave, and how to establish a rapport with your hosts. This inside knowledge will enable you to steer clear of embarrassing gaffes and mistakes, feel confident in unfamiliar situations, and develop trust, friendships, and successful business relationships.

Culture Smart! offers illuminating insights into the culture and society of a particular country. It will help you to turn your visit-whether on business or for pleasure-into a memorable and enriching experience. Contents include


* customs, values, and traditions
* historical, religious, and political background
* life at home
* leisure, social, and cultural life
* eating and drinking
* do's, don'ts, and taboos
* business practices
* communication, spoken and unspoken


"Culture Smart has come to the rescue of hapless travellers." Sunday Times Travel

"... the perfect introduction to the weird, wonderful and downright odd quirks and customs of various countries." Global Travel

"...full of fascinating-as well as common-sense-tips to help you avoid embarrassing faux pas." Observer

"...as useful as they are entertaining." Easyjet Magazine

"...offer glimpses into the psyche of a faraway world." New York Times
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Product Description
This work is intended for children aged 9-14 years. By combining the Gaelic myths and Celtic folklore of ancient Ireland with modern day festivals and celebrations, "Ireland The Culture", presents the traditions and customs of old Ireland with the contemporary works and influences of modern artists. Historic Ireland is captured through dramatic photographs of castles, churches and prehistoric tombs. Other topics include: Celtic mythology; Irish literary revival; the castles of Ireland; holidays and festivals; Irish pilgrimages; and prehistoric tombs and ancient monasteries. ... Read more

Product Description
Whether you're conducting business, traveling for pleasure, or even relocating abroad, one mistake with customs or etiquette can leave a bad taste in everyone's mouth. International travelers, now more than ever, are not just individuals from the United States, but ambassadors and impression makers for the country as a whole. Newly updated, redesigned, and resized for maximum shelf appeal for travelers of all ages, Culture Shock! country and city guides make up the most complete reference series for customs and etiquette you can find. These are not just travel guides; these are guides for a way of life. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (7)

perfect preparation book
an excellent resource for planning a trip to Ireland or just learning more about Ireland!

A Useful read before travel
Provides very useful insights to the Irish culture, especially the more rural regions.A must read to understand how best to get along with the locals.Relatively short and easy to read.

Culture Shock! Italy
It was delivered fast and it was brand new. I loved it!

After All, It's Not All Shillelaghs and Shamrocks
If you think of green beer, shamrocks and leprechauns when someone says "Ireland" then this is a book for you.

Different from a travel guide, this book will help a new Eire inductee gain insight to Ireland and the Irish people themselves whether you are there for vacation, business trip or school.Especially good is the section about Irish history, the people involved in the making of that history and the important player's in making peace in Northern Ireland.Having said that, this book is badly in need of an update since it stops just after the 1998 Peace Agreement was reached.It also helps you to understand where each side is coming from and how not to make conversation faux pas when discussing the often sensitive issue of The Troubles.

The book is great for an overall feel of Ireland's culture but it's not for those who have had much exposure already.Having gone on several trips to Ireland and knowing many native Irish individuals personaly, I found much of the book to be too basic.However I still was still entertained and learned bit more about the Irish in general.I wish I had read it before my first trip; it would have helped me to understand and appreciate the island more at that time.

Before You Go To Ireland, Read This....
This book is a wonderful preliminary to any first-time excursion to Ireland, as well as a concise compendium of everything Irish. Not a tour-guide; it delves into cultural issues, Ireland's history (up to and including the 1998 Northern Ireland Peace Agreement, which, unfortunately will require a whole new chapter as of today's writing), political faces and national celebrities,interacting with the locals, pub life, key Gaelic phrases, and basically, how to navigate without looking like a total tourist.

I highly recommend this to anyone interested in an introduction to Irish history and current issues, and to anyone who is going to Ireland for the very first time. ... Read more

Product Description
This work is intended for children aged 9-14 years. Spectacular photographs capture Ireland's coastal cliffs, rugged mountains, and green glens. With a look at the Ireland of yesterday and today, traditional land-based economies are presented alongside modern commerce. From the farming lands of the west coast to Dublin's busy cobbled streets, this book reveals both traditional and contemporary Ireland. Other topics include: old and new industries; Dublin and other cities; Irish nationalism; mountains, cliffs and coasts; Giant's Causeway; and ancient settlers and invaders. ... Read more

Product Description
Here's the next best thing to a trip to Ireland. Rich with illustrations and beautiful color photographs, this 416-page volume is a comprehensive survey of that country's history and culture, from the pre-Christian era through the creation of the United Kingdom and into the 20th century, right up to the recent economic boom.There's plenty more, including a dictionary of clans and families, a glorious appreciation of the landscape organized by county, and a selection of classic Irish recipes. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (1)

Ireland: History, people, Culture
Well presented and easily understood.As detailed as a text book but quite well presented and accurate in facts. A good introduction into the people and culture of the Irish and the land. Excellent photography and descriptions. A must have for any collection on Ireland.Takes you from province to province in photo and word in a grand tour from past to present. ... Read more

Product Description
This work is intended for the children aged 9-14 years. Ireland's people have been divided and united through a turbulent history of battles and shared hardships. Celts, Vikings, and others have shaped the Ireland of today. "Ireland The People", presents a history of the ancient peoples, the arrival of more recent settlers, and the country's struggle for independence. Ireland's city and country life are presented showing the contrasts of Ireland's people and their influences on contemporary Irish society. Other topics include: Mesolithic and Neolithic settlers; British colonisation and plantations; Ireland's new economy; Easter Rising and Irish independence; the Potato Famine and Irish Diaspora; and 'The Troubles" in Northern Ireland. ... Read more

Product Description
In this book Lyons traces the outlines of four conflicting cultures which coexist in Ireland: Gaelic, English, Anglo-Irish and Ulster Protestant.He contends that their interlocking patterns form the basis of Ireland's continuing conflicts.The historical framework of the book is defined by two symbolic dates: the fall of Parnell and the death of Yeats. ... Read more

Product Description
One of Ireland's foremost literary and cultural historians, Terence Brown's command of the intellectual and cultural currents running through the Irish literary canon is second to none, and he has been enormously influential in shaping the field of Irish studies. These essays reflect the key themes of Brown's distinguished career, most crucially his critical engagement with the post-colonial model of Irish cultural and literary history currently dominant in Irish Studies. With essays on major figures such as Yeats, MacNeice, Joyce and Beckett, as well as contemporary authors including Seamus Heaney, Derek Mahon, Michael Longley, Paul Muldoon and Brian Friel, this volume is a major contribution to scholarship, directing scholars and students to new approaches to twentieth-century Irish cultural and literary history. ... Read more

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" In Northern Ireland, Halloween is such a major celebration that it is often called the Irish Christmas. A day of family reunions, meals, and fun, Halloween brings people of all ages together with rhyming, storytelling, family fireworks, and community bonfires. Perhaps most important, it has become a day that transcends the social conflict found in this often troubled nation. Through the extensive use of interviews, The Hallowed Eve offers a fascinating look at the various customs, both past and present, that mark the celebration of the holiday. Looking through the lenses of gender, ethnicity, and religious affiliation, Jack Santino examines how the traditions exist in a nonthreatening, celebratory way to provide a model of how life could be in Northern Ireland. Halloween, concludes Santino, is a marriage of death and life, a joining of cultural opposites: indoor and outdoor, domesticity and wildness, male and female, old and young. Although current folk and popular traditions can be divisive, Halloween in Northern Ireland is universally considered to belong to everyone, regardless of their background or political leanings. The holiday is a dramatic example of how a community comes together one day a year, and these Northern Irish traditions capture the fundamental and everyday dimensions of life in Ulster.

Customer Reviews (1)

Modern Slant on Age-old Customs
There are many books on Halloween (including another by Jack Santino), but this book is unique in presenting a look at how very old customs have persisted amid the social turmoil and political unrest of Northern Ireland. Since Santino is an American folklorist, one would expect an outsider'sview of Halloween. Instead, having lived in Northern Ireland for anextended period and formed working relationships with folklorists there,Santino offers a view of a cultural phenomenon that is both sympathetic andobjective. His insights are worth considering. Perhaps the only drawback tothis volume is its lack of historical perspective or comparison with otherCeltic cultures. Despite this, the present volume is a welcome addition tothe library of anyone interested in Halloween itself or Celtic culturalremains. ... Read more

Product Description
When China opened its borders to travelers and its economy tointernational trade, businesses all over the world took note. With wellover one billion people, it represented a huge potential marketplacefor goods and services. Huge as it is, however, China is not amonolithic culture. Though deeply rooted in native traditions, itscontemporary marketplace is eclectic, combining Chinese regional styleswith elements borrowed from foreign cultures. Most of all, it isevolving at a remarkable pace. To succeed in that dynamic emergingmarket, smart businesses need to understand its drivinginfluences—especially its urban youth.

Authors Lianne Yu, Cynthia Chan, and Christopher Irelandbring their collective experience and perspective to this thoughtful,beautifully illustrated analysis of the world’s fastest-growing market.Focusing on four fundamental aspects of the consumer Chineselifestyle—food, style, home life, and mobility—they show how Chineseculture is speedily developing into a radically new form. Anyone who isinterested in expanding his or her business in China should not missthis analysis.
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Customer Reviews (8)

China is changing fast
Author discusses changes in young people's lifestyle over past decade in the big cities of China. I have seen a lot of these changes myself during recent trips over past 4-5 years . Groups of young people in China & here(U.S.) are very similar. The book reviews these advances through the themes of clothing,travel,music and other topics that young people have in common

See all the happy consumers!
I gave this book 3 stars because it is interesting and exciting to hear about China and what is happening with its youth.Unfortunately, the fact that the book seems to be solely written in order to allow Western corporations to infiltrate the Chinese market really cheapens the stories within.

The tone rarely strays from quotes such as: "China's young consumers face something their parents rarely, if ever, did: choosing which products and experiences best fit their personality and lifestyle".As well asstatements like: "China's newest generation is proud of its country and optimistic about it growth to world leadership in this century".I am sure that this is true, that many of China's youth are proud and optimistic, but there should be some qualifiers to this - at least more than passing references to the censorship of the internet, the earlier student struggles at Tiananmen square... SOMETHING more than "As long as you are not disruptive, the government does not care. Our government wants to help us get rich" (p. 29)

I think what is ultimately dismaying that this book is published by New Riders - in general I expect more from them...

A fun, informative beautiful book
A very interesting book.In the end it shows the young people of China are no different from those anywhere else.The excellent photos make the book even more enjoyable.

Informative and quick read on the Chinese market
This book sets out to describe the younger Chinese consumers who are shaking things up - and along the way, brings them to life with good storytelling and lots of photos.If you don't know what Li-Ning, Yonghe, Baidu and QQ are or why they're important, you should - and this book will get you thinking about them.

New dimension in understanding China
After reading The World Is Flat, I have become much more aware of how important it is to recognize and understand other major economies beyond our own and how they affect us -- our work, our thinking and planning, and what our own future will be like.Clearly, understanding the culture of a people is seminal to understanding how their systems work and how they may be likely to evolve, affecting us. China's New Culture of Cool is definitely an important addition to that particular bookshelf of knowledge. The images are tantalizing, too. ... Read more

Product Description

Product Description
The Great Community is a comprehensive reappraisal of cultural nationalism in Ireland. It traces its origins to the Young Ireland movement of the 1840s, and moves on to examine W. B. Yeats's initial endorsement and subsequent rejection of the group's ideals. Cultural nationalism, David Dwan argues, was not a romantic retreat from politics, or simply an aesthetic expression of a desire for national independence: it was an ambitious attempt to recover an ancient ideal of citizenship for a modern democratic age. Drawing on political thought from Aristotle to Edmund Burke, The Great Community examines the attractions and difficulties of this enterprise. From the start, the project relied on institutions such as the press. Dwan concludes with an analysis of the vexed relationship between newspapers and Irish nationalism. The rift between classical theories of public opinion and its actual development in the press; the consequent disparagement and continued use of newspapers by nationalists; and the symbolic significance of famous media victims (such as Parnell and Synge) in Irish culture are the concluding motifs of this ground-breaking study. The Great Community recovers the logic behind a largely lost form of politics; in doing so, it reveals the limitations of our own political imagination. ... Read more

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Irelands of the Mind: Memory and Identity in Modern Irish Culture offers a compelling series of essays on changing images of Ireland from the mid-nineteenth century to the present. It seeks to understand the various ways in which Ireland has been thought about, not only in fiction, poetry and drama, but in travel writing and tourist brochures, nineteenth-century newspapers, radio talk shows, film adaptations of fictional works, and the music and songs of Van Morrison and Sinéad O Connor. The prevailing theme throughout the twelve essays that constitute the book is the complicated sense of belonging that continues to characterise so much of modern Irish culture. Questions of nationhood and national identity are given a new and invigorated treatment in the context of a rapidly changing Ireland and a changing set of intellectual methods and approaches. ... Read more

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From an analysis of the Guinness brand's reflection of Irish identity to an exploration of murals and film portrayals of political prisoners, this pioneering collection of essays seeks to present Ireland's relationship to visual culture as a whole. While other works have explored the imagistic history of Ireland, most have restricted their lens to a single form of visual representation. Ireland in Focus is the first book to address the diverse range of visual representations of national and communal identity in Ireland.

The contributors examine the politics of visual representation from both historical and contemporary perspectives. Drawing from the areas of cultural theory, postcolonial studies, art criticism, documentary and archival history, and gender studies, the essays provide novel insights on a variety of visual-cultural forms, including film, theater, photography, landscape art, political murals, and the visual iconography of commercial marketing. Bringing together established scholars and emerging young critics in the field, Ireland in Focus breaks new ground in showcasing the essential dynamism of visual culture and its relationship to Irish studies. ... Read more

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When political opponents Ian Paisley and Martin McGuiness were confirmed as First Minister and Deputy First Minister of a new Northern Ireland executive in May 2007, a chapter was closed on Northern Ireland’s troubled past. A dramatic realignment of politics had brought these irreconcilable enemies together--and the media played a significant role in persuading the public to accept this startling change. The Propaganda of Peace analyzes this incident and others in a wider study on the role of the media in conflict resolution and transformation. With analysis of factual and fictional media forms, The Propaganda of Peace proposes a radically different theoretical and methodological approach to the media’s role in reporting and representing.

Product Description

Ireland and the Irish are beloved today in the United States, not the least because of the large Irish-American population. The Irish have contributed a great deal to the Western literary canon and to the arts, and their way of life on the Emerald Isle is fabled. Culture and Customs of Ireland is the source for those interested in learning about the real Ireland and how its culture and customs came to be. Scanlan has her finger on the pulse of the country as it booms into the twenty-first century. This insightful survey of the contemporary scene is a one-stop resource for country study reports, general reading, and travel preparation.

Scanlan excels at portraying the vibrancy of Ireland, which has undergone a remarkable transformation since the 1980s and is now the second-wealthiest country in the European Union. At the same time, embattled Northern Ireland has taken key steps toward security and peace. This book surveys the cultural and political heritage of the Irish people, North and South. It highlights the remarkable accomplishments of Ireland's artists, writers, musicians and performers. It investigates the role of religion in Irish life, and the ways in which prosperity, feminism, and scandals within the churches have weakened that role. It looks at the impact of immigrants and refugees on contemporary society, at the increasing visibility of women on both sides of the border, and at the growing acceptance of gays. It also looks at daily life in Ireland—people going to work, shopping, finding someone to care for their children and the like. Most particularly, it shows the challenges of maintaining Irish identity in the face of globalization.

Product Description
    Under the strict rule of twentieth century Irish censorship, creators of novels, films, and most periodicals found no option but to submit and conform to standards.  Stage productions, however, escaped official censorship. The theater became a "public space"—a place to air cultural confrontations between Church and State, individual and community, and "freedom of the theatre" versus the audience’s right to disagree.
    Joan FitzPatrick Dean’s Riot and Great Anger suggests that while there was no state censorship in early-twentieth-century Ireland, the theater often evoked heated responses from theatergoers, sometimes resulting in riots and the public denunciation of playwrights and artists. Dean examines the plays that provoked these controversies, the degree to which they were "censored" by the audience or actors, and the range of responses from both the press and the courts. She addresses familiar pieces such as those of William Butler Yeats, John Millington Synge, and Sean O’Casey, as well as the works of less known playwrights such as George Birmingham. Dean’s original research meticulously analyzes Ireland’s great theatrical tradition, both on the stage and off, concluding that the public responses to these controversial productions reveal a country that, at century’s end as at its beginning, was pluralistic, heterogeneous, and complex.   ... Read more

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Vividly evoking Irish sounds, instruments, and dance steps, this study describes traditional Irish music and dance in Ireland and America. It provides a springboard for the discussion of cultural and historical issues of identity, community, nationalism, emigration, transmission, and gender. ... Read more

Customer Reviews (3)

Sets the standard
This outstanding book fills a long-standing lacuna. It will immediately become the standard introductory text for Irish music, and it should remain so for the forseeable future--it's hard to imagine what could surpass it. The material is elegantly organized and very well presented. I particularly like the way that the reader is welcomed into real traditional music events; in these sections the material truly comes alive. The recorded examples are lovely.

For anyone curious about how & why Irish music sounds so
In a new volume in Oxford's Global Music Series, the subtitle `Experiencing Music, Expressing Culture' emphasises the musical force gained by Irish music from its being rooted in the local. Dorothea Hast and Stanley Scott, practitioners and scholars both, visit a seisiun at Gleesons pub in Clare near the Miltown Malbay centre of melodic pilgrimage, interview traditional singers Len Graham from Glenarm and his wife, Padraigin Ni Uallachain, from Louth, and analyze a performance held at Trinity Inn near the college in Dublin under the auspices of the Goilin Singer's Club. By concentrating on these three manifestations of the current Irish scene, emphasising in turn the instrumental, the sean-nos and song tradition, and the song as both perpetuating the tradition and welcoming the innovative, Hast and Scott provide an overview easily enjoyed in a couple of sittings along with the accompanying 28-track CD, keyed to their informative text.

Although designed for the classroom, this volume can inform anyone about the background, current context, and permutations of Irish music. I was impressed by the ease in which musicologists Hast and Scott integrate technical terms into their text designed for the rank novices like me to musical terminology. The activities allow you to learn from the CD track at specified moments in your reading, and particularly impressive I found one example. Piper Jerry O'Sullivan offers multiple versions of "Garrett Barry's Jig." The first is a stripped-down version transcribed for the beginning student. The notes simplify the melody. The second version adds ornaments. The third time through, with the use of the regulators of the instrument, adds even more intricacies. As a careful listener to the pipes, the combination of the three scores and the three takes added immeasurably to my comprehension of what, if I had been presented only with the audio tracks, would have sounded like lots of flash added to a straightforward tune.

The connection of the pub session and the repertoire with the local emerges strongly in these pages. Hast and Scott could have wandered all 32 counties and given a thumbnail rundown of famous players or notable tunes in these 150 pages. Instead, they study the etiquette, the passing on of tunes, the respect paid the elders, and the democracy of the audience and players, as all who play and sing thus gain appreciation in turn. The incident down the road or up the lane, as so many titles show, the inspiration of a particular player, and the commemoration of battles and courtships long faded remain memorialised but never mummified. The context emerges in the playing and the singing, ever-shifting but still reified. Each playing and recital changes the structure but leaves the scaffolding in place for the next builder. Eschewing the gazateer approach, the authors' choice to zero in on three locales heightens their primacy of the community within what continues to be passed on within the Irish traditional repertoire, and what is added.

After an injury of a famous musician, the authors note that within a week or so not one but two ballads had been composed about his mishap while playing at doubles. E-mail and phone only accelerate the transmission of the oral tradition, it seems. Similarly, the ability to tape performances, to sell recordings, and share by technological advances the wealth of musical variation only increases the lustre of the treasure to which musicians and singers contribute. `In each postindependence generation of Irish musicians, individuals have had to choose between the urban, upbeat high-volume allure of swing, rock and roll country and western, heavy metal, or rap and the more rural, frequently slower-paced, quieter, intimate appeal of Irish music'. (96)Now, on the other hand, musicians and singers can mix forms. While in my opinion the hybrids can be dreadful, they do expose younger listeners to the older forms.

The gamut of players and singers treated shows this heterogeneity. While any listener or player may lament who or what's been left out, you must admit that the range can certainly educate the beginner or the advanced fan of Irish music of the diversity we are lucky to hear and share now. For example: Carolan harp tunes, West Clare and Sligo fiddle, ceili bands from the 1940s, vocals from John McCormack, Joe Heaney, Andy Irvine, and Gleesons pub singers, sean-nos from Ni Uallachain and Scots-Irish song from Graham, and members of Lunasa live and in session demonstrating some of the finer points of the text, to which Hast and Scott also enrich their own musical collaborations. The text covers the history of Irish music effectively, although the influential and detrimental Dance Halls Act of 1935 in the south needed more explanation, as it weakened the ability of individuals to hold their own musical gatherings and seems to have been instigated by the Church and the Dublin government to weaken rural choices for venues. I wondered if this was part of the anti-jazz campaign undertaken by republicans in the middle of that decade, but the text offers no context. Dance tune traditions and their instruments in turn receive a few paragraphs; from this I learned of the bodhran's very recent rise in popularity and that of the uilleann pipes, both having entered the limelight only during the 60s and 70s. The decline of the harp and the ascent of the fiddle still puzzled me due to their too brief treatment here. Why the concertina became the "woman's instrument" can be traced, intriguingly, to not only its relative affordability early last century but its sale at hardware stores.

Throughout this survey, Ciaran Carson, Belfast poet-musician, from his estimable Last Night's Fun (1996), the ultimate print on Irish sound, continues to be cited. Near the end of Hast and Scott quote Carson--
'Each time the song is sung, our notions of it change, and we are changed by it. The words are old. They have been worn into shape by many ears and mouths and have been contemplated often. But every time is new because the time is new, and there is no time like now.' (116; in Hast and Scott, 135). As with the language, so the music and the native culture. All are enriched by the blow-ins and the strangers, but never is the root torn away. The nutrients from fresh winds plant themselves in the soil and the stronger creation, the hybrid, can better withstand old winds and new blasts. Or so we hope.

(Excerpted from a longer review on-line "The Harp New-Strung" from Belfast journal, The Blanket)

great overview/history of traditional Irish music
I've always enjoyed Irish music when I've had the opportunity, but I didn't have any formal knowledge about it. This book was very accessible and covered a lot of bases -- the music itself, the key instruments (the harp gets its due along with the more commonly seen fiddle and others), the relationship between Irish music and Irish history and culture, and an intro to various types of traditional Irish music. And a real sense of the Irish people and personality comes through.(Conversations with many of Ireland's leading performers are reported in the book).The accompanying CD is great: again part education, part performance.Some recently performed pieces and some fascinating recordings from decades past.Recommended.
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"The Taste of Ireland - Landscape, Culture & Food" will inspire the imagination and tantalize the taste buds. Learn about the fascinating emerald isle, from the rugged coastline, to ancient Celtic sites, to modern bustling cities or try your hand at one of the delicious traditional recipes, from Irish Soda Bread to Potato, Leek and Rosemary Soup. With evocative and informative text, stunning photography and step-by-step recipes this beautiful book is invaluable to traveler and foodie alike. ... Read more