R. F. Foster is Carroll Professor of Irish History at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of Hertford College, Oxford. His books include Modern Ireland, 1600-1972, Paddy and Mr Punch, The Irish Story, W. B. Yeats (two volumes) and Luck and the Irish.
Powerful and absorbing ... [Foster] draws on decades of engagement with cultural history to bring an original, lively and learned analysis to a fascinating generation ... Much of his account is riveting and skilfully woven together, with the analysis enlivened by Foster's customary sparkling prose ... gives us a deep and textured awareness of that enclosed, self-referencing, hectic world where the thinkers lived, worked, reflected and dreamed -- Diarmaid Ferriter Irish Times Written with a stern sense of authority, but simultaneously leaving room for suggestion, interpretation, debate and nuance, Vivid Faces is an immensely important analysis of Irish history that will be used again and again as a reference point for generations to come -- J P O'Malley Sunday Independent Living Roy Foster paints a splendid group portrait of the men and women whose aspirations, and fantasies, led to the Easter Rising of 1916. -- John Banville Observer