A Ploughing People

Journey into the heartland of rural Ireland, in words and images, from the 1930s to today. Meet the characters behind the Ploughing Championships, past and present. Witness the traditions and stories from a changing way of life, where community spirit remains central, and the plough keeps turning the sod, year on year . . . Since the early 1930s, The National Ploughing Championships has occupied a special place in the heart of rural Irish life, when people gather from every corner of the country to show off their skills and engage in sport, fun and business. Here, for the first time, the magic of the Ploughing is captured in word and image. We follow Valerie Cox as she journeys around Ireland to meet the people who make this national institution great, and record the stories of what the ploughing means to them, whether it's vintage tractors, a pair of Clydesdales or a plough handed down from a grandfather. Among others, we meet three-time world champion Martin Keogh, take an unforgettable trip to Thady Kelleher country in East Cork, and are enchanted by the first even Queen of the Plough Anna Mai Donegan, who won her crown in 1955. This beautiful book also provides a record of a landscape that may bear little resemblance to that of the 1930s but, in important ways - of family, community and the nod and wink of the business deal - is little changed. A gift, a keepsake, A Ploughing People is a unique celebration of the best of Irish life.

For more than two thousand years, Ethiopia’s ox-plow agricultural system was the most efficient and innovative in Africa, but has been afflicted in the recent past by a series of crises: famine, declining productivity, and losses in biodiversity. James C. McCann analyzes the last two hundred years of agricultural history in Ethiopia to determine whether the ox-plow agricultural system has adapted to population growth, new crops, and the challenges of a modern political economy based in urban centers. This agricultural history is set in the context of the larger environmental and landscape history of Ethiopia, showing how farmers have integrated crops, tools, and labor with natural cycles of rainfall and soil fertility, as well as with the social vagaries of changing political systems. McCann traces characteristic features of Ethiopian farming, such as the single-tine scratch plow, which has retained a remarkably consistent design over two millennia, and a crop repertoire that is among the most genetically diverse in the world. People of the Plow provides detailed documentation of Ethiopian agricultural practices since the early nineteenth century by examining travel narratives, early agricultural surveys, photographs and engravings, modern farming systems research, and the testimony of farmers themselves, collected during McCann’s five years of fieldwork. He then traces the ways those practices have evolved in the twentieth century in response to population growth, urban markets, and the presence of new technologies.

'The embodiment of the spirit of rural Ireland' Anna May McHugh's name is synonymous with 'the Ploughing' - the annual Championships of the National Ploughing Association. The event is the biggest outdoor agricultural show in Europe and Anna May is the driving force behind its spectacular growth. Anna May now tells her story. Her description of growing up as part of a large family in rural County Laois is an evocative and affectionate account of an Ireland that is now gone. But in her account of how she went from being a secretary of the Ploughing Association, her first job, to becoming - to her own amazement - its managing director twenty years later is a story of leadership and people skills that are very much of the twenty-first century. Anna May was truly ahead of her time. Still living in County Laois, close to where she grew up, and now in her eighties, Anna May still runs the multi-million euro operation from her home, alongside her daughter, Anna Marie. Queen of the Ploughing is a captivating read, full of warmth, lively stories and Anna May's sharp observations. And it's not just about Anna May's life, but is also a celebration of the best of Irish life over eight decades.

List of members in each volume.

The Netherlands have a long and proud history in Chinese studies. This volume collects not only articles that trace the historical development of Chinese studies in the Netherlands from the middle of the nineteenth century to the present and beyond, but also studies that deal with Dutch research in specific disciplines within Chinese studies. Chinese studies in the Netherlands originated from the needs of the Dutch colonial administration in the Dutch East Indies, but developed a strong philological emphasis in the first part of the twentieth century, to turn increasingly towards disciplinary research on modern and contemporary China in the last few decades. Contributors include Leonard Blussé, Maghiel van Crevel, Barend ter Haar, Albert Hoffstädt, Wilt Idema, Mark Leenhouts, Oliver Moore, Frank Pieke and Rint Sybesma.