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The first edition of this book included essays from Senator George J. Mitchell, Sir David Goodall, Sir George Quigley, Lord Owen, and Niall O'Dowd among others, and demonstrated the evolution of peace in Ireland, culminating in the Good Friday Agreement. It has now been updated with new essays to ensure that this vital resource for students, scholars, politicians, and the interested general reader continues to illuminate the peace process through the words of some of its pivotal figures. The essays all relate to the nature of peacemaking as a process rather than an event signalled by the signing of an agreement. The significant role of ‘third party’ diplomacy is touched on by many contributors, as is the need for pragmatism, compromise, and a recognition that it is those people at the polar extremes of any dispute that have to be drawn in if a lasting agreement is to be achieved.

This book is an assessment of the ideological and organizational development of Provisional republicanism since 1985. It explores how the Republican movement has changed from an anti-state insurgency to a potential partner in governing the state it was pledged to destroy, and, in particular, attempts to consider the origins of what has become known as ‘New Sinn Féin’.

This book is a study of the constitutional and political development of the Isle of Man. It analyses three broad aspects of twentieth-century political development: constitutional progress towards self-government, elections and public policy and the changing role of the state in Manx society. One of the most important political changes the study addresses is the gradual ascendancy of the directly elected House of Keys in Manx politics. The book concludes with a look at the final two decades of the century, a period of population growth and unprecedented prosperity for the small offshore island.

J. T. Murphy was one of the most important worker-intellectual figures in the history of labour in early twentieth-century Britain. Using material from the Communist Party of Great Britain's archives and the Russian Centre for the Preservation and Study of Recent History in Moscow, this book not only tells the story of Murphy's political trajectory, but also provides a critical re-examination of the historical and social significance of the early British revolutionary movement in which he played such a prominent role.

The decommissioning of the Provisional IRA in 2005 suggests that Northern Ireland may finally be ready to turn from the deadly paramilitary clashes of the twentieth century to the thorny problems of a normalized political process. The book probes a number of crucial questions about the United Kingdom's management of Irish affairs. Three decades of fighting have had grave consequences for Northern Ireland —what were the costs? Was violence inevitable? The book delineates the unwise decisions and abrogated responsibilities that led to the civil crisis of the Troubles while emphasizing the United Kingdom's overriding duty to ensure peace.