Comparative history has been very much in fashion in the last couple decades, rightly so, as pursuing histories exclusively within national borders has often been contradicted by trends that have transcended those borders. At the same time, doing comparative history is not without potential dangers. An excellent essay written by Bela Tomka in the 2005 issue of the Hungarian historical journal AETAS sets forth those dangers in illuminating detail. One is how differences and similarities are balanced between the entities to be compared. Should differences be too great, then at what point do they invalidate any useful comparison? (p. 250 in Tomka's essay). This point argues for not taking comparative history to its extreme conclusion in every single case and for retaining national histories within reasonable limits.

The authors of this volume are aware of this potential pitfall. The best part of this volume establishes the parameters of historical comparisons between the Hungarians and the Irish, correctly stating the valid analogy between two peoples struggling for freedom and emancipation within their respective imperial frameworks (9). Simultaneously, the authors do issue a warning about the differences that had separated the two countries. Most importantly, in Ireland the Anglo-Irish aristocracy constituted the political elite, deemed antagonistic to Irish national aspirations, whereas in Hungary, the nobility was generally in tune with Hungarian national objectives. Consequently, it was the Catholic Church in Ireland that took the lead, making religious considerations much more significant than in Hungary, where the principal issue was Magyar supremacy coexisting with and occasionally confronting cultural and political ambition on the part of the country's non-Magyar ethnic minorities (18–19, 48).

Another possible problem may arise if, notwithstanding the intention of the author or authors to compare, the end result is in fact a depiction of juxtaposed case histories (Tomka, p. 252). Unfortunately, the authors of this volume have fallen into that trap. After their excellent introduction, the text morphs into a largely accurate but rather dry, pedestrian, and occasionally repetitious rendition of what happened when in the two countries. To be sure, the emphasis of the narrative is still on what was similar or different in Ireland and Hungary, and the central role that the 1867 Austro-Hungarian Compromise had played as a model for Irish nationalists, such as Arthur Griffith, who had “Home Rule” for Ireland within the British Empire in mind, is well-argued (16–17), but what is needed in this volume is a livelier text, with not fewer but more comparisons.

The authors do mention literary sources in their introduction, two famous Irish writers who expressed interest in Hungary, James Joyce and William Butler Yeats (9, 16); but they do not follow up that kind of inquiry. Yet, perhaps the most intriguing similarity between Hungarians and the Irish had to do with their vulnerabilities as members of small nations and what followed from their shared sense of victimhood. A comparative study of their respective mentalities would not only enliven the text, but would also broaden the authors' analysis. Although the authors promise to write about “national mythbuilding” (7), there is truly no discussion in the book of Hungarian romanticism in the first half of the nineteenth century, or of the Celtic Renaissance in the second, with both aiming at reviving national folklore and legends in order to counter similar deeply ingrained self-doubts lurking beneath the surface of their boastful superiority complex. Isabel Burton's ignorant statement from 1879, “neither race ever composed poetry of the highest class” (14), is not refuted by the authors through the use of possible examples to the contrary.

Along this line, a more personal touch would help as well, portraying for instance outstanding statesmen, Count István Szechényi and Lajos Kossuth in Hungary, and Daniel O'Connell in Ireland, not only as political leaders, but also as human beings and as genuine representatives of two different kinds of an emotionally charged liberal—in Szechényi's case more conservative—nationalism. The portrayal of scores of other fascinating leaders from both countries could add even more color and understanding of the periods under discussion.

Tomka does not mention the following possible problem in comparative historiography, though it may be the most frequently occurring one. Authors of historical comparisons are rarely experts in both fields. In this case, it is evident to this reviewer that considering their professional backgrounds, the authors are understandably much more at home in Irish than in Hungarian history, because of factual errors committed in narrating the latter. Oszkár Jászi was no friend of Count István Tisza, on the contrary (12); Kossuth, though admittedly a relative radical in the Hungarian nationalist spectrum, did not aim in the 1840s for an “independent republic separate from the Monarchy” (65). In István Deák's words, “[Kossuth's] program was Hungarian sovereignty within the Monarchy.” Not even when Hungary dethroned the Habsburg dynasty upon Kossuth's instigation in April 1849, did he declare Hungary a republic. (István Deák, The Lawful Revolution: Louis Kossuth and the Hungarians, 1848–1849, New York: Columbia University Press, 1979; 62, 262). In discussing the critical decade of the 1840s, the authors fail to mention either the centralists or the conservatives (66–67). Finally, it is a mistake to equate the Calvinists and Lutherans in Hungary as mainstays of Hungarian nationalism (95), because that was much more true of the former than the latter, whose members were mostly Germans and Slovaks.

William O'Reilly and Andrea Penz have written an interesting book, whose topic needs to be expanded and improved upon, bringing the narrative part up to the level of their outstanding introduction.