Whilst there are any number of books on the subject of Northern Ireland, few provide much guidance on how it has been handled by Westminster and Whitehall, or indeed the extent to which British governments and Parliament has tried to avoid having to handle the issue. This book provides a much needed historical context in which to assess contemporary approaches to the Northern Ireland problem and, in essays covering the period from the establishment of the Northern Ireland state to the present day, points to many often overlooked continuities in British policy.

Barton and Roche have drawn on the expertise of leading Irish historians to examine the history and political/ideological character of Irish nationalism and unionism and the origins and implementation of Partition. The book also draws on the expertise of historians, political analysts and economists to explore 'North-South relations' in post-Partition Ireland and the extent of socio-economic and political discrimination in Northern Ireland after 1920. The Northern Ireland Question: Nationalism, Unionism and Partition offers a 'revisionist' challenge to Irish nationalist claims (in, for example, the Report of the New Ireland Forum published in 1984) about the nature and extent of 'discrimination' in Northern Ireland and to Irish nationalist claims about the economic viability of the political uniication of Ireland. The book concludes with an overview of unionist and nationalist thinking in the 1990s during the crucial period of the beginning of the 'peace process' and the negotiations that led to the Belfast Agreement in 1998.

A collection of essays by academics and specialists (rather than participants) that provides a comprehensive analysis of the perceptions and responses of each of the predominant political movements and forces which in combination comprise the Northern Ireland question. The essays identify and dissect the individual elements of which the problem is composed and thereby illuminate the complex issues involved and the obstacles blocking their resolution. Distributed by Ashgate. Annotation copyright by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

For quarter of a century now the British Army has been involved in a bloody and protracted conflict in Northern Ireland. This book looks at the roots of the current struggle and of British military intervention, setting both in the longer perspective of the Anglo-Irish Troubles. It is, however, more than a chronicle of military strategies and sectarian strife: it seeks to place the use of the army within the context of the wider British experience of dealing with political violence, and to address the broader issue of how democratic states have responded to both ethnic conflict and the threat of `internal' disorder

First published in 1999, this volume was the third in a trilogy on the 'problem' of Northern Ireland. It examines the political content of the unionist and nationalist 'ideologies' which have emerged in the late 19th and early 20th centuries in Ireland. The focus of the book is also to examine and assess the impact of unionist and nationalist thinking and commitment on political and economic life in the twentieth century.