Ireland: The 20th (Twentieth) Century

ISBN: 0300166788

Author: Townshend, Charles

Condition: New

Ireland in the twentieth century has had a very different history fromthat of most other western European countries. The two most profoundshocks of the century, the world wars, met Ireland obliquely rather thanhead-on. Partition and civil war, on the other hand, were embitteringexperiences felt at first hand, the legacies of which snake their coursethrough its subsequent history.How did the Irish'revolution' come about and what was its nature? How did Ulster end upwith the rich irony of being the only part of Ireland to embrace HomeRule? How well did the new Republic's promise of freedom assuage thepainful reality, until the 1960s, of low economic growth and persistentemigration? Why was the Northern Ireland state unable or unwilling toconciliate its minority Catholic population? These are among the manyissues addressed in Charles Townshend's masterful account, one inwhich, to use the words of a reviewer of an earlier work of his,'outstanding coolness, judiciousness and flair' combine with penetratingpowers of analysis. It is the first account to cover the whole ofIreland, north and south, from the origins of Sinn Fein at the beginningof the century to the Stormont agreement at the end.