Sinn Fein is one of the most controversial and uncompromising parties in Irish politics. Brian Feeney presents a comprehensive account of the role of Sinn Fein in Irish history since the inception of the movement in 1905 when Arthur Griffith first published The Sinn Fein Policy. Sinn Fein has survived an extraordinary history in politics and has seen some of the most famous names in Irish history pass through its ranks. This book examines the party in terms of the men who have led it and their progress through the electoral mechanism, the party's relationship with the IRA and the British and Irish governments, and, of course, its role in the current peace process. This is an important and timely book from an esteemed journalist, and an impartial analysis of Sinn Fein's involvement in Irish politics, north and south, over the last hundred years.

An English eccentric and adventurer, Tom Harrisson (1911-1976) sought knowledge and renown in a dizzying number of fields, while breaking most of the rules of "civilized" society. This hugely enjoyable story of his extravagant, controversial life offers a sympathetic and insightful look at a charismatic figure who offended as many people as he impressed at the twilight of colonialism on the fringes of the British empire.

By age twenty-one, Harrisson had carried out pioneering ornithological research and explored the flora and fauna of Northern Borneo. While still in his twenties, he wrote a best-selling book based on his experiences living among cannibals in the South Pacific. The next decade found Harrisson applying the techniques of bird-watching to his fellow Britons in what became Mass-Observation, a precursor to modern market research. Later, he won the DSO for parachuting into Borneo behind enemy lines and organizing an army of blow-piping headhunters who eventually killed more than a thousand Japanese soldiers.

After the war Harrisson settled in Borneo, where, as curator of the Sarawak Museum, he transformed it into a model and inspiration for the region; he led efforts to save the orangutan, the green sea turtle, and other endangered species; he discovered the oldest modern human skull known at the time; he published widely in the scientific and popular press, and appeared frequently on the BBC and British television.

A man with tremendous breadth of interest and vision, Harrisson continually sought ways to connect knowledge across disciplines, alienating in the process more narrowly focused alien academics who resented his encroachments -- and his lack of a universitydegree. Yet a number of his ideas, particularly in anthropology and archaeology, seem modern today.

The Most Offending Soul Alive is the rousing and compelling story of a man who has been called one of the most remarkable men of his generation. It portrays an individual of irresistible energy, magnetism, and imagination, but also shows Harrisson to be an emotionally troubled man, who spent much of his life fighting to gain respect from the academic world, despite the fact that he despised many of its values. A hard-drinking, hard driving egotist, full of ambition, curiosity, and pent-up rage, he never had -- during his long career and afterwards -- the recognition he sought and deserved for his many achievements.

This is the life story of Meini Dunlevy, born in Massachusetts of County Kerry parents. Meini was rearded in he grandparents' house in Dunquin. When she was 19, she eloped with an island widower to the Great Blasket, where she worked as a nurse and midwife for 36 years. Returning widowed to Dunquin, she died in 1967, aged 91. Meini's story, recorded by the author from her own accounts and those of her friends and relatives in Dunquin, is an evocation of a forceful personality and a reconstruction of a way of life that has passed.

In the late 1950s Stuart Hall, Edward Thompson and Raymond Williams, among others, came together as part of a promising new political formulation, the New Left. The six years of the group's formal existence represents one of the richest and most exciting periods in the intellectual history of the left in Britain. This short period saw the beginning of many future theoretical developments in radical politics, and the founder members of the New Left are now associated with ground-breaking work in history, culture and politics. Michael Kenny documents and analyses the debates of the New Left, showing how their preoccupations prefigure many contemporary concerns: the broadening of the previously narrow definition of politics, an engagement with popular culture, the exploration of a Gramscian politics, and the attempt to open a 'third space' between a defunct Marxism-Leninism and an intellectually barren labourist tradition.

In this most improbable of twentieth-century wars, Argentina and Great Britain waged a three-month conflict over a group of islets in the South Atlantic that hold no strategic or material value for either side, that are barely habitable by any human standard, and that have fewer permanent settlers than the total number of combatants.

We are the people is a popular Loyalist slogan in Northern Ireland - a statement of loyalty, identity and devotion to and from Ireland's Protestants. This collection examines the meaning behind this legend, providing a critique of the issues which affect this heterogeneous community.

The acclaimed author of "Troublesome Young Men "reveals the behind-the-scenes story of how the United States forged its wartime alliance with Britain, told from the perspective of three key American players in London: Edward R. Murrow, the handsome, chain-smoking head of CBS News in Europe; Averell Harriman, the hard-driving millionaire who ran FDR's Lend-Lease program in London; and John Gilbert Winant, the shy, idealistic U.S. ambassador to Britain. Each man formed close ties with Winston Churchill--so much so that all became romantically involved with members of the prime minister's family. Drawing from a variety of primary sources, Lynne Olson skillfully depicts the dramatic personal journeys of these men who, determined to save Britain from Hitler, helped convince a cautious Franklin Roosevelt and reluctant American public to back the British at a critical time. Deeply human, brilliantly researched, and beautifully written, "Citizens of London" is a new triumph from an author swiftly becoming one of the finest in her field.

The Girl from Hockley is a new, revised edition bringing together in one new volume this remarkable story. Born into the industrial slums of Birmingham in 1903, Kathleen Dayus became a legend in her own time. She vividly recalls her Edwardian childhood and her life as a young munitions worker during the war, marriage and life below the poverty line in the 1920s. Early widowhood and the Depression forced her to relinquish her children to Dr Barnado's homes until, eight long years later, she could afford a home for them again. Her autobiography is a testament to the indomitable spirit, humour and verve that characterised her life. Her extraordinary memory for the sights, sounds and smells of her youth, her marvellous sense of the comic and above all her spirited refusal to do anything but live life to the full, deservedly made her one of the most compelling storytellers of our time.

After a late and shaky start because of the jealousies of local agricultural societies, the Welsh National Agricultural Society founded in 1904 (to be renamed the Royal Welsh Agricultural Society in 1922) was to surmount many problems and difficulties in its first seventy years or so to become by the 1980s one of the three major agricultural societies in the United Kingdom. This remarkable success story is traced by David Howell in fourteen chapters which cover the holding of the show at Aberystwyth from 1904 to 1909, the migratory years between 1910 and 1962 when some 37 'canvass towns' were erected at different centres in north and south Wales in alternative years, and the society's fortunes on the permanent site at Llanelwedd from 1963.

The difficulties that have dogged the Northern Ireland peace process and the implementation of the Good Friday Agreement are rarely out of the headlines. This book gives a uniquely up-to-date insight into one of the issues at stake for the people of Northern Ireland - the long-term impact of political violence on the civil population. The result of extensive research among local communities, and drawing on survey and interview evidence, Northern Ireland After the Good Friday Agreement sets this issue within the context of past conflict and the continuing sectarian violence of the present. In particular it presents the views of ordinary people about their personal experiences of political violence and the impact it has had upon their lives. Moreover, it shows how the Troubles have affected the young people of the region, and looks at the problems facing a society coming out of a protracted period of low-intensity conflict.

This book examines the postwar memoir fight over the broad front versus the single thrust strategy, the Allied advance on the Rhine, and the British call for a ground-forces commander other than General Eisenhower. It traces the argument in the postwar memoirs from 1946 through 1968 as well as the official histories of the United States, Britain, and Canada to see what the documents really said. What were men willing to say, what did they feel that they had to cover up? Field Marshal Montgomery was deeply chagrined that he had only one army group to command when he thought himself the most professional commander in Northwest Europe. Montgomery had little grasp of the intricacies of politics and could not understand that American public opinion made it impossible for Eisenhower to name him ground-forces commander. During the Battle of the Bulge the U.S. President and Chief of Staff settled the issue in Eisenhower's favor.

Part of the "Past in Perspective" series, this text provides a concise introduction to the events which led to the partition of Ireland, with a discussion of the subsequent development of the two Irish states which emerged from the events of 1920-1922. The author is even-handed in his treatment of the two Irish states and their politics, and deals sensitively with a very complex affair, especially when he deals with post-1968 developments. In addition to a core of chapters which explore a major theme in depth and from a number of angles, this book begins with a survey of the ways in which its theme has been treated in the past by historians and other writers; it includes a section of contemporary documents substantial enough to give an accurate flavour of the relevant theme, and it ends with a bibliography to give the guidance to further study. By these means, as well as the inexpensive format, the series aims to convey the facination of Irish history to a wider public.

Synthesizing a vast body of scholarly work, Henry Patterson offers a compelling narrative of contemporary Ireland as a place poised between the divisiveness of deep-seated conflict and the modernizing - but perhaps no less divisive - pull of ever-greater material prosperity. Although the two states of Ireland have strikingly divergent histories, Patterson shows more clearly than any previous historian how interdependent those histories - and the mirroring ideologies that have fuelled them - have been. With its fresh and unpredictable readings of key events and developments on the island since the outbreak of the second world war, "Ireland Since 1939" is an authoritative and gripping account from one of the most distinguished Irish historians at work today.

This volume covers the wide-ranging historical, social, and cultural developments since the end of World War II. From the austerity of the immediate post-war years to the consumerism and globalization of the present day, Post-War Literature chronicles the impact of decolonization, mass popular culture, women's liberation, postmodernism, and privatization. The works of George Orwell, Samuel Beckett, Doris Lessing, Margaret Atwood, Tom Stoppard, Salman Rushdie, and others have explored this period in varied and fascinating ways.

In the already vast literature on Churchill, no single work has focused on his changing attitude towards the Soviet Union. In the first four decades after the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917, he oscillated in a seemingly bewildering fashion between enmity and apparent friendship with the Soviets. Taking the Bolshevik Revolution as its starting point, this is a pioneering study of this great statesman's relationship with the USSR until his retirement in 1955.

Looking at London life and letters from 1901 to 1914 with a wicked eye, Mr. Paterson captures the excitement and rebellion of the age's art and literature, sex and society politics and labor.

The politics of Englishness provides a digest of the debates about England and Englishness and a unique perspective on those debates. Not only does the book provide readers with ready access to and interpretation of the significant literature on the English Question, it also enables them to make sense of the political, historical and cultural factors which constitute that question. The book addresses the condition of England in three interrelated parts. The first looks at traditional narratives of the English polity and reads them as variations of a legend of political Englishness, of England as the exemplary exception, exceptional in its constitutional tradition and exemplary in its political stability. The second considers how the decay of that legend has encouraged anxieties about English political identity and about how English identity can be recognised within the new complexity of British governance. The third revisits these narratives and anxieties, examining them in terms of actual and metaphorical 'locations' of Englishness: the regional, the European and the British.

This text looks at the important issues in British politics since 1945, including a brief guide to the changing political culture of Britain in that period. It should be essential reading for all students studying politics at A2 level, as it covers all the important issues required by the main examining boards. Neil McNaughton begins by reviewing the changing nature of the principal political ideologies - Conservatism, Labourism and Liberalism - before discussing how these ideological changes impact generally on policy developments in the UK. Having described the changing nature of the political culture, addressing partisan dealignment, changing morality, the decline of religion and class fragmentation, he examines on a chapter-by-chapter basis the key issues of British politics today, the particular problems affecting Northern Ireland, devolution, constitutional reform, rights, the environment, issues of gender and sexual orientation, European integration and the European Union, the impact of the European Union on Britain, ending with a brief summary of the issues that are likely to take centre stage in British politics in the first decade of the 21st century. The text has been written in a accessible style, with helpful features such as summaries, definitions, tables and boxes to illuminate the points made.

This text offers a refreshing and challenging perspective on the nature of history by analysing the character, role, functioning and wider uses of historiography. Taking British policies towards European integration since World War II as a case study, the author demonstrates how its interpretation and and reportage over time is subject to changing trends. Seeking to explain these trends in terms of the different conceptions of the past which are maintained by different schools of writing, it forces us to confront the fundamental difficulties we encounter in undertaking studies in history. It draws attention to the impact on historical interpretation of changing times, political discourse, the opening of archives, and of subjects being brought to the fore by professional historians. constructing the past and in creating its narratives. Furthermore, it asserts that historiography is riddled with politics at all levels and that to write the historian out of tests is to represent what it entails to write history. In so doing, it demonstrates how the philosophy of history has a direct bearing upon the everyday practice of history. thinking about and understanding history. It should appeal to international historians, those interested in history as a form of philosophical inquiry, to students of European integration history and the Cold War, and to British foreign policy-makers.

This fifth edition has been extensively revised including:
* updates bringing the material covered up to 2001
* a combined chapter on Political Institutions and Local government, focusing on devolution and its effects
* the introduction of more debate and 'cultural' material
* new further reading sections at the end of each chapter
* an updated set of illustrations. _

The book is divided into 3 sections: Maura's Boy describes the first ten years of the life of Christy Kenneally, a working-class Cork north-sider who lost his mother when he was five years old. The book is as much about the place as the narrator, and beautifully conveys the sense of a lost golden age. Kenneally's new material tells the story of life after coming to grips with the death of his mother. The New Curate picks up the narrative when Kenneally is twenty-four and is appointed chaplain to 'The Incurable', St Patrick's Hospital on Wellington Road. The account of his three years there with terminal cancer patients and his other job as spiritual director for five Cork secondary schools makes an unforgettable story which combines laughter and sorrow - and an occasional miracle.

A biography of one of Ireland's leading diplomats who served in France and Germany during the Second World War. He also served in the Vatican and London during his diplomatic career up to the 1950s.Relying on a range of personal papers and diplomatic material from Ireland and France, Con Cremin: Ireland's Wartime Diplomat is the first biography of this leading Irish career diplomat. Cremin was sent to all of the major Irish missions abroad, Paris and Vichy in the late 1930s, Berlin during the later years of the war, on to Lisbon before concluding his service back in headquarters in Dublin. His diplomatic life was fascinating largely because of the timing and relevance of his postings. His career gives many insights into the role of the Irish state in a time of upheaval in Europe.