The Backward Glance: A Miscellany of Irish History, Politics & Culture is a rare bird. It deals with topics of Irish political and cultural history which have only received sparse and spasmodic attention. It seeks to row out over a vast ocean of material and bring from the depths exotic specimens for rechecking and review. It’s Political themes include: The Bouncing Heart of de Valera; Sean South and the Border War; Northern Ireland and the Snares of History; The First Irish Republicans; Orangeism: Ireland’s Second Tradition; Parnell: The Rebel Prince; Davitt, the Fenians and the Land War; The Third Home Rule Bill and the Ulster Crisis; Gladstone and the Cloud in the West; Sarsfield: Limerick’s Hero; Dan Breen and the IRA; O’Duffy and the Blueshirts; Kickham; An Unrepentant Fenian; Captain Boycott saves his Harvest; Revisiting The Glorious and Immortal Memory; How Keynes got to Kinnegad; What really happened at Soloheadbeg. There are individual articles on: The Manchester Martyrs, Robert Emmet, James Dillon, Sean Lemass and Charles Haughey. Cultural themes include: The Abbey and the Genius of the Irish Theatre; MacLimmoir and the Gate; John Millington Synge: The Man and his Achievement ; Samuel Beckett and The Absurd; Lecky: Historian and Liberal Unionist; John Pentland Mahaffy: Provost and Wit; The Story of London’s Irish Club; The Limerick Pogrom; 1904; Bernard Canavan: Artist; Trinity College: 300 Years On.

The fissures that have split the United Kingdom in the last decades have run through Northern Ireland. Since the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, the fragile peace has been threatened by Brexit, the rise and fall of the D U P and the failure of power-sharing arrangement between the main parties at the Stormont Assembly. As the very future of Northern Ireland is now in jeopardy, will Britain face up to its imperial legacy and address the deep inequalities that remain in the aftermath of the Troubles, and the uneven development of the 'New Ireland'? Geoffrey Bell offers an insightful history of Ulster Unionism from the 1960s to the present day. In recent years this has come to a crisis point. What is the future of the Union in the post-Brexit reality? How will the relationship between Northern Ireland and Westminster develop? Can the United Kingdom survive?

In recent decades, there has been a substantial turn towards narrative and life history study. The embrace of narrative and life history work has accompanied the move to postmodernism and post-structuralism across a wide range of disciplines: sociological studies, gender studies, cultural studies, social history; literary theory; and, most recently, psychology. Written by leading international scholars from the main contributing perspectives and disciplines, The Routledge International Handbook on Narrative and Life History seeks to capture the range and scope as well as the considerable complexity of the field of narrative study and life history work by situating these fields of study within the historical and contemporary context. Topics covered include: • The historical emergences of life history and narrative study • Techniques for conducting life history and narrative study • Identity and politics • Generational history • Social and psycho-social approaches to narrative history With chapters from expert contributors, this volume will prove a comprehensive and authoritative resource to students, researchers and educators interested in narrative theory, analysis and interpretation.

This volume contains Harriet Martineau's writings on the history of England and its efforts and negotiations to promote peace between 1834 and 1841, providing a detailed account of the political revolutions and democratic and military reforms that shaped England's history.

These pioneering essays provide a unique study of the development of political ideas in Ireland from the seventeenth to the twentieth century. The book breaks away from the traditional emphasis in Irish historiography on the nationalism/unionism debate to focus instead on previously neglected areas such as the role of the Scottish Enlightenment and early Irish socialism and conservatism. A wide range of original primary sources are used from pamphlets to journalism, devotional tracts to poetry.