In Painting History, Tony Crowley provides a detailed analysis of the complex tradition of muralism in the context of the history that produced it, with particular attention given to the cultural politics of this remarkable form. The book also raises and discusses a series of theoretical questions about murals and muralism that transcend Northern Ireland: issues of propriety and legality, form and content, authority and censorship. The work ends with a consideration of the future of the murals in a still polarized but changing region.
Tony Crowley is professor of English at the University of Leeds. His monographs include Language in History: Theories and Texts (1996), The Politics of Discourse (2003), Wars of Words: the Politics of Language in Ireland 1537–2004 (2005), Scouse: A Social and Cultural History (2012) among others. His archive of some 22,000 images of murals, graffiti, and street in Northern Ireland (1979–2024) is available in the Claremont Colleges Digital Library.