Interpreting Northern Ireland

Winner of the Ewart-Biggs Memorial Prize 1991.

This book provides a clear and much-needed guide to the mass of literature on Northern Ireland since the current troubles started in 1968,Relative to its size Northern Ireland is possibly the most heavily researched area on earth; hundreds of books and thousands of articles have been published since the current troubles began in the mid 1960s. John Whyte had been studying Northern Ireland since the mid-1960s. In Interpreting Northern Ireland he provides a badly-needed guide to the mass of literature and comment. In Part I, he surveys the research on the nature and extent of the community divide, examining in turn the religious, economic, political, and psychological aspects of the issue. In Part II he discusses ideological interpretations of the Northern Ireland problem, from unionist and nationalist to Marxist. In the final section of the book he surveys the various solutions that have been proposed and looks critically at what the mass of research has achieved. He suggests that if it has not achieved more it may be because it has sometimes asked the wrong questions.