Beginning in about 6000 BC, this comprehensive history of Ireland spans the ages and takes the reader up to the present day. It covers the Neolithic, Bronze and Iron Ages, describing Irish tombs, artefacts and buildings; the arrival of Christianity in Ireland; the Golden Age (500-800 AD) when Irish scholars were the most renowned in Europe; the great Viking period; the takeover of Ireland by Henry II in 1171; the long and painful association with England; the struggle between Protestant and Catholic, colonial settler and native Irishman; and the fight for independence, achieved by the South...

In this study, Peter Fry describes and analyses spirit-mediumship amongst a community of Zezuru people living near Salisbury in Southern Rhodesia (Zimbabwe). He examines the belief system which underpins spirit-mediumship and the basis of the mediums' authority. He pays special attention to the way in which religious beliefs are used politically in specific social situations ranging from village disputes to issues of national importance. Instead of portraying the spirits and their mediums as a fixed and stable hierarchy, Peter Fry stresses the dynamics of a religious system which changes over...