Ireland in the twentieth century has had a very different history from
that of most other western European countries. The two most profound
shocks of the century, the world wars, met Ireland obliquely rather than
head-on. Partition and civil war, on the other hand, were embittering
experiences felt at first hand, the legacies of which snake their course
through its subsequent history.

How did the Irish
'revolution' come about and what was its nature? How did Ulster end up
with the rich irony of being the only part of Ireland to embrace Home
Rule? How well did the new Republic's promise of freedom assuage the
painful reality, until the 1960s, of low economic growth and persistent
emigration? Why was the Northern Ireland state unable or unwilling to
conciliate its minority Catholic population? These are among the many
issues addressed in Charles Townshend's masterful account, one in
which, to use the words of a reviewer of an earlier work of his,
'outstanding coolness, judiciousness and flair' combine with penetrating
powers of analysis. It is the first account to cover the whole of
Ireland, north and south, from the origins of Sinn Fein at the beginning
of the century to the Stormont agreement at the end.