These Divided Isles: Britain and Ireland, Past and Future (Hardback)

Impressively detailed, readable and measured . . . A fluent, well-researched history that is personal but rarely polemical, fair but honest.

Standoffs, climbdowns and acrobatic turnarounds are the defining features of the story told by These Divided Isles . . . a ruminating overview by British journalism grandee Philip Stephens . . . Succinctly charted and lucidly critiqued. Due attention is paid to political shifts in Dublin, London and Belfast. Decisive and sometimes constructive interventions by American interests are also explored. The storytelling is skilful. Observations from key players in each momentous development are artfully deployed to create a sense of unfolding drama. Colourful anecdotes are interwoven with big-picture assessments . . . An intelligent guide to a dizzyingly fractured history.

A valuable witness . . . A lively account . . . Deserves to be taken seriously. [Stephens's] analysis will disappoint those who want to rush the fences on unity. He judges a united Ireland to be plausible but not yet probable and wants to know “what unity would look like?”

If Britain understood its relationship with its first colony, Ireland, it could begin to understand the consequences of running the biggest empire in human history. This timely book from one of Britain's most perceptive commentators provides an illuminating entryway into this essential history.

Stephens’ account of the jagged divisions between Britain and Ireland over the last century and the repeated attempts to heal them is masterful and beautifully written. It is interlaced with his own experiences from his mother’s home in Killtimagh in County Mayo and as the leading political commentator in London for two decades. Required reading for anyone interested in how the Troubles ended and what the final answer to the Irish question might be.

One of the most astute and informed modern commentators on British politics and its foreign policy . . . Stephens has written a profound, authoritative and readable account of the troubled relations between Britain and Ireland.