Focusing on both Irish government and society, Daly places Ireland's population history in the mainstream history of independent Ireland. Her book is essential reading for understanding modern Irish history."--BOOK JACKET.

A Winnipeg Free Press Top Read of 2021 What if David Bowie really was holding the fabric of the universe together? The death of David Bowie in January 2016 was a bad start to a year that got a lot worse: war in Syria, the Zika virus, terrorist attacks in Brussels and Nice, the Brexit vote—and the election of Donald Trump. The end-of-year wraps declared 2016 “the worst … ever.” Four even more troubling years later, the question of our apocalypse had devolved into a tired social media cliché. But when COVID-19 hit, journalist and professor of public policy Andrew Potter started to wonder: what if The End isn’t one big event, but a long series of smaller ones? In On Decline, Potter surveys the current problems and likely future of Western civilization (spoiler: it’s not great). Economic stagnation and the slowing of scientific innovation. Falling birth rates and environmental degradation. The devastating effects of cultural nostalgia and the havoc wreaked by social media on public discourse. Most acutely, the various failures of Western governments in their responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. If the legacy of the Enlightenment and its virtues—reason, logic, science, evidence—has run its course, how and why has it happened? And where do we go from here?

Societies around the world are concerned about dementia and the other forms of cognitive impairment that affect many older adults. We now know that brain changes typically begin years before people show symptoms, which suggests a window of opportunity to prevent or delay the onset of these conditions. Emerging evidence that the prevalence of dementia is declining in high-income countries offers hope that public health interventions will be effective in preventing or delaying cognitive impairments. Until recently, the research and clinical communities have focused primarily on understanding and treating these conditions after they have developed. Thus, the evidence base on how to prevent or delay these conditions has been limited at best, despite the many claims of success made in popular media and advertising. Today, however, a growing body of prevention research is emerging. Preventing Cognitive Decline and Dementia: A Way Forward assesses the current state of knowledge on interventions to prevent cognitive decline and dementia, and informs future research in this area. This report provides recommendations of appropriate content for inclusion in public health messages from the National Institute on Aging.