Background
O'Brien, Conor Cruise was born on November 3, 1917 in Dublin, Ireland. Son of Francis Cruise and Katherine (Sheehy) O'Brien.
( The first literary phase in the brilliant and protean c...)
The first literary phase in the brilliant and protean career of Conor Cruise O'Brien was his work as critic for Dublin literary magazine The Bell, which begat this collection of essays first published in 1952 (under the pseudonym 'Donat O'Donnell', as O'Brien was then a working civil servant). In it, O'Brien set himself to a study of 'the patterns of several exceptionally vivid imaginations which are permeated by Catholicism' - from Graham Greene and Evelyn Waugh to Francois Mauriac and Paul Claudel - and to analyse 'what those patterns might share'. The originality and flair of Maria Cross won O'Brien many vocal admirers, among them Dag Hammarskjold, cerebral Secretary-General of the United Nations. 'A most interesting and at times brilliant book, admirably and wittily written.' New Statesman 'One of the most acute and stimulating books of literary criticism to be published for some years.' Spectator
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( The Suspecting Glance (first published in 1972) collect...)
The Suspecting Glance (first published in 1972) collects Conor Cruise O'Brien's four T. S. Eliot Memorial Lectures as delivered at the University of Kent, Canterbury, in November 1969. The lectures were inspired by O'Brien's experience of holding the Albert Schweitzer Chair in Humanities at New York University from 1965-9, and there teaching students in whom he noted burning radical convictions but also a disconcerting 'lack of suspicion in those bright, young eyes'. Whereas to O'Brien's mind the 'suspecting glance' was a mark of political maturity that had to be first directed at one's own opinions prior to decrying another's. Brien's Eliot lectures were, as his friend Frank Callanan noted, a 'corrective gesture' toward his New York experience. In them he considers four writers - Machiavelli, Burke, Nietzsche, Yeats - whom he reads as being 'profoundly aware of the resource and versatility of violence and deception in man, in society, and in themselves'.
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( In Herod: Reflections on Political Violence (first publ...)
In Herod: Reflections on Political Violence (first published in 1978) Conor Cruise O'Brien collects a number of essays alongside three short plays that dramatise political arguments through the infamous figure of the Roman king of Judaea for whom the collection is named. 'A great book. In it, O'Brien not only denounces IRA terrorism, as you would expect from a mainstream politician, but - in a sense quite different from the rationalisations offered by ideological apologists for political violence - seeks to understand it. I mean, really understand it - not extenuate it by equivocation and non sequitur. And his thinking leads him to attack the republican mythology at the heart of the Irish state. Few writers have analysed terrorism so acutely or been as effective in undermining its ideological justifications.' Oliver Kamm, from his preface to this edition
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( Statesman, political thinker, orator, and ardent campai...)
Statesman, political thinker, orator, and ardent campaigner, Edmund Burke was one of the most brilliant figures of the eighteenth century. This unorthodox biography focuses on Burke's thoughts, responses, and actions to the great events and debates surrounding Britain's tumultuous relationships with her three colonies—America, Ireland, and India—and archrival France. "In bringing Burke to our attention, Mr. O'Brien has brought back a lost treasure. The Great Melody is a brilliant work of narrative sweep and analytical depth. Conor Cruise O'Brien on Edmund Burke is a literary gift to political thought."—John Patrick Diggins, New York Times Book Review "Serious readers of history are in for a treat: a book by the greatest living Irishman on the greatest Irishman who ever lived. . . . O'Brien's study is not merely a reconstruction of a fascinating man and period. It is also a tract for the times. . . . I cannot remember another time when I finished a book of more than 600 pages wishing it were longer."—Paul Johnson, The Independent "The Great Melody combines superb biography and fascinating history with a profound understanding of political philosophy."—Former President Richard Nixon
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0226616517/?tag=2022091-20
(For the first biography of this man of letters, diplomat,...)
For the first biography of this man of letters, diplomat, and scholar, Donald Harman Akenson had unrestricted access to O'Brien's personal papers. The intimate drama of people and events that emerges is not only a portrait of one man but also the story of modern history unfolding. "Conor Cruise O'Brien . . . has certainly found a splendid biographer in historian Akenson. . . . [This] is a very fine biography, full of wit, verve, candor, and a critical appreciation of its subject."--Kirkus Reviews
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(A distinguished statesman and man of letters deplores the...)
A distinguished statesman and man of letters deplores the mounting attacks on Enlightenment values that jeopardize the very survival of the democratic institutions they inspired. Enlivening his grim predictions with dry wit, O'Brien nevertheless conveys an apocalyptic sense of the threats facing democracy as we approach the third millennium.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/002874098X/?tag=2022091-20
(Dust jacket art by Milton Glaser. A play about the confro...)
Dust jacket art by Milton Glaser. A play about the confrontation between Patrice Lumumba, Premier of the Congo, and Dag Hammarskjold, Secretary-General of the U.N.
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( Arguably Conor Cruise O'Brien's most influential and ad...)
Arguably Conor Cruise O'Brien's most influential and admired book was this brilliant collection of essays - on history, literature and public affairs - first published in 1965. 'I can still remember the excitement with which I discovered a copy of Writers and Politics, in a provincial library in Devonshire thirty years ago. Nobody who tries to write about either of those subjects, or about "the bloody crossroads" where they have so often met, can disown a debt to the Cruiser.' Christopher Hitchens, London Review of Books 'When a liberal can write such pieces as "Mercy and Mercenaries", "Journal de Combat", "Varieties of Anti-Communism", "A New Yorker Critic", and "Generation of Saints", an important voice has returned to our culture.' Raymond Williams, Guardian
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(Conor Brady, widely recognized as the most authoritative ...)
Conor Brady, widely recognized as the most authoritative historian of Irish policing, explores some of the biggest challenges the Garda¡ have faced since 1960. Acknowledged as one of the successes of the independent Irish State, the Garda S¡och na has not, however, been without its flaws and its failings. Brady looks at how the security of the Irish State was maintained during the Northern crisis, chronicles the emergence of guns in Irish criminal life and comprehensively covers the recent spate of crisis that have rocked the force to its very core.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0717159361/?tag=2022091-20
(Conor Cruise O'Brien, respected journalist, diplomat and ...)
Conor Cruise O'Brien, respected journalist, diplomat and statesman, considers threats to the Enlightenment tradition from which modern society derives threats he considers serious enough that the tradition and its institutions might not survive even a third of the next millennium.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0887845592/?tag=2022091-20
(Written in 1972 in the wake of Bloody Sunday and direct r...)
Written in 1972 in the wake of Bloody Sunday and direct rule, States of Ireland was Conor Cruise O'Brien's searching analysis of contemporary Irish nationalism: part-memoir, part-history, part-polemic. "If The Great Melody (1992) is O'Brien's major academic work, States of Ireland is the one that will endure as a vital moment in Irish intellectual and political history." (Roy Foster, Standpoint). "States of Ireland [is] a book which influenced a generation. [O'Brien] saw that partition, while scarcely desirable in itself, recognized the reality of two different communities in the island, and that the Dublin state's formal irredentist claim on Northern Ireland was undemocratic and even imperialistic, as well as insincere. The republican ideology to which most Irish people paid lip service was a shirt of Nessus, he later wrote: "it clings to us and burns"." (Geoffrey Wheatcroft,Oxford Dictionary of National Biography).
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(Based on the revealing and provocative testimony of appro...)
Based on the revealing and provocative testimony of approximately one hundred powerful, upper-income white men, White Men on Race shows how white men see racial "others," how they see white America, how they view racial conflicts, and what they expect for the future of the country.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0807009830/?tag=2022091-20
(Based on the revealing and provocative testimony of appro...)
Based on the revealing and provocative testimony of approximately one hundred powerful, upper-income white men, White Men on Race shows how white men see racial "others," how they see white America, how they view racial conflicts, and what they expect for the future of the country.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0807009830/?tag=2022091-20
(Publisher's Notes on the 1963 Edition: These studies o...)
Publisher's Notes on the 1963 Edition: These studies of eight Catholic writers - Mauriac, Greene, Waugh, Bernanos, Bloy, Peguy, Claudel and O'Faolain - first appeared as the work of "Donat O'Donnell". His refreshing refusal to be taken in by literary modishness and received ideas soon created a following among discriminating readers who cared for honesty in crticism of contemporary writing and who looked forward eagerly to "Donat O'Donnell's" articles and reviews. Not until UNO forces intervened in Katanga was it revealed that "Donat O'Donnell" and Dr. Conor Cruise O'Brien, special envoy of the United Nations Secretary-General Dag Hammarskjold, former Irish diplomat and author of the authoritative Parnell and His Party, were one and the same. Now Vice-Chancellor of Ghana University, he has written a special introduction to this new edition of Maria Cross which is also supplemented by appendices on Graham Greene's later work and additional discussion of Claudel.
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000FZRP6M/?tag=2022091-20
O'Brien, Conor Cruise was born on November 3, 1917 in Dublin, Ireland. Son of Francis Cruise and Katherine (Sheehy) O'Brien.
Bachelor, Trinity College, Dublin, 1940. Bachelor, Trinity College, Dublin, 1941. Doctor of Philosophy, Trinity College, Dublin, 1953.
Doctor of Letters, University Bradford, 1971. Doctor of Letters, University Ghana, 1974. Doctor of Letters, University Edinburgh, 1976.
Doctor of Letters, University Nice, 1978. Doctor of Letters, Coleraine University, 1981. Doctor of Letters, University Liverpool, 1987.
With Irish Civil Service, 1942, Department Finance Government of Ireland, 1942—1944. Staff member Department External Affairs Government of Ireland, 1944—1961. Head Information and Cultural Section.
Managing director Irish News Agency, 1948—1955, counsellor Paris, 1955—1956. Delegate, head United Nations Irish Section, 1955—1961, assistant secretary general department, 1960. Representative Secretary General United Nations, Katanga, Democratic Republic of Congo, 1961, Shaba, Zaire.
Vice chancellor University Ghana, 1962—1965. Regents professor, holder Albert Schweitzer chair in humanities New York University, 1965—1969. Member Dail Eireann, Dublin, 1969—1977.
Minister Posts and Telegraphs, 1973—1977. Visiting fellow Nuffield College, 1973. Pro-chancellor University Dublin, senator, 1977—1979.
Editor-in-chief The Observer, London, 1978—1981. Consultant education, 1981—2008.
( The first literary phase in the brilliant and protean c...)
(Based on the revealing and provocative testimony of appro...)
(Based on the revealing and provocative testimony of appro...)
(Conor Cruise O'Brien, respected journalist, diplomat and ...)
( In Herod: Reflections on Political Violence (first publ...)
(Written in 1972 in the wake of Bloody Sunday and direct r...)
(Publisher's Notes on the 1963 Edition: These studies o...)
(A distinguished statesman and man of letters deplores the...)
( Arguably Conor Cruise O'Brien's most influential and ad...)
(Conor Brady, widely recognized as the most authoritative ...)
(For the first biography of this man of letters, diplomat,...)
( Statesman, political thinker, orator, and ardent campai...)
(A courageous, dramatic telling of the Jewish homeland's e...)
(A courageous, dramatic telling of the Jewish homeland's e...)
( The Suspecting Glance (first published in 1972) collect...)
(United Nations, The: Sacred Drama, by O'Brien, Conor Crui...)
(An authoritative study of Edmund Burke, the man and his a...)
(Light wear to DJ, dusty, Internally Like New.)
(Dust jacket art by Milton Glaser. A play about the confro...)
(1)
Author: Maria Cross, 1952, Parnell and His Party: 1880-1890, 1957, To Katanga and Back: A United Nations Case, 1962, Conflicting Concepts of the United Nations, 1964, Writers and Politics, 1965. Author: (with Northrop Frye and Stuart Hampshire) The Morality of Scolarship, 1967. Author: The United Nations: Sacred Drama, 1967, Conor Cruise O'Brien Introduces Ireland, 1969, Camus, 1970.Author: (with Maire Cruise O'Brien) A Concise History of Ireland, 1972. Author: The Suspecting Glance, 1972, States of Ireland, 1972, Herod Reflections on Political Violence, 1978, Religion and Politics, 1984, The Siege: The Saga of Israel and Zionism, 1987, God Land, 1988, Passion and Cunning: Essays on Nationalism, Terrorism and Revolution, 1988, The Great Melody: A Thematic Biography of Edmund Burke, 1992, Conor: An Anthology, 1994, Ancestral Voices, 1994, On the Eve of the Millennium, 1994, The Long Affair: Thomas Jefferson and the French Revolution, 1785-1800, 1996, (plays) Murderous Angels, 1968, King Herod Explains, 1969. Editor: The Shaping of Modern Ireland, 1960, Power and Consciousness, 1969, Edmund Burke's Reflections on the Revolution in France, 1969.
Irish Delegate to United Nations 1956-1960. Dail Eireann (House of Representatives) for Dublin (Labour) 1969-1977. Royal Irish Academy.
Travelling.
Married Christine H. Foster O'Brien, 1939 (divorced 1962). Children: Donal, Fidelma. Married Maire MacEntee O'Brien, 1962.
Adopted children: Margaret, Patrick.