`It was the most providential escape yet. It will probably have the
effect of making them think that I am even more mysterious than
they believe me to be, and that is saying a good deal.' Michael
Collins knew the power of his persona, and capitalised on what
people wanted to believe. The image we have of him comes filtered
through a sensational lens, exaggerated out of all proportion. We
see what we have come to expect: `the man who won the war', the
centre of a web of intelligence that `brought the British Empire to
its knees'. He comes to us as a mixture of truth and lies,
propaganda and misunderstanding. The willingness to see him as the
sum of the Irish revolution, and in turn reduce him to a caricature
of his many parts, clouds our view of both the man and the
revolution. Drawing on archives in Ireland, Britain and the United
States, the authors question our traditional assumptions about
Collins. Was he the man of his age, or was he just luckier, more
brazen, more written about and more photographed than the rest?
Despite the pictures of him in uniform during the last weeks of his
life, Collins saw very little of the actual fight. He was chiefly
an organiser and a strategist. Should we remember him as a master
of the mundane rather than the romantic figure of the blockbuster
film? The eight thematic, highly illustrated chapters scrutinise
different aspects of Collins' life: origins, work, war, politics,
celebrity, beliefs, death and afterlives. Approaching him through
the eyes of contemporaries and historians, friends and enemies,
this provocative book reveals new insights, challenging what we
think we know about him and, in turn, what we think we know about
the Irish revolution.
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