Ireland in the Twentieth Century

Rating:
Summary: Complete (modern) history of Ireland to 2003
Review: A thorough, highly detailed account of the current history of Ireland, especially political. An extremely long book (750+ pages not counting indices) and you have to get used to Coogan's writing style that no sentence shall be less than 50 words long with multiple phrases embedded. This is an excellent account of the evolution of modern day Ireland. Coogan knows the internal political scene well and gives considerable weight to detailing it. This tends to take away somewhat from the readability since as a North American, I'm not familiar with the multitude of names that I'm sure are second nature to an Irishman like Coogan. Nevertheless, I feel that I came away with a better understand of how the Irish situation has developed and it did give me new and better background in which to frame my thinking. Recommended reading but only for true, non-fiction, history buffs.

Rating:
Summary: Complete (modern) history of Ireland to 2003
Review: A thorough, highly detailed account of the current history of Ireland, especially political. While an extremely long book (750+ pages not counting indices) and you have to get used to Coogan's writing style that no sentence shall be less than 50 words long with multiple phrases embedded), this is an excellent account of the evolution of modern day Ireland. Coogan knows the internal political scene well and gives considerable weight to detailing it. This tends to take away somewhat from the readability since as a North American, I'm not familiar with the multitude of names that I'm sure are second nature to an Irishman like Coogan. Nevertheless, I feel that I came away with a better understand of how the Irish situation has developed and it did give me new and better background in which to frame my thinking. Recommended reading but only for true, non-fiction, history buffs.

Rating:
Summary: Complete (modern) history of Ireland to 2003
Review: A thorough, highly detailed account of the current history of Ireland, especially political. While an extremely long book (750+ pages not counting indices) and you have to get used to Coogan's writing style that no sentence shall be less than 50 words long with multiple phrases embedded), this is an excellent account of the evolution of modern day Ireland. Coogan knows the internal political scene well and gives considerable weight to detailing it. This tends to take away somewhat from the readability since as a North American, I'm not familiar with the multitude of names that I'm sure are second nature to an Irishman like Coogan. Nevertheless, I feel that I came away with a better understand of how the Irish situation has developed and it did give me new and better background in which to frame my thinking. Recommended reading but only for true, non-fiction, history buffs.