The story of the Irish potato famine of the 1840s in all of its gruesome detail: a million dead; governmental neglect of the crisis; reliance of the wealthy upon economic solutions. Mrs. Woodham-Smith writes as an accomplished historian; he other well-known work is "The Reason Why", a history of the charge of the Light Brigade in the Crimean War. If you are Irish, then this is the story of why our ancestors came to America.
I can't repost this book. I have read it before and I wanted the book for my library. Terrific book on the subject.