These Divided Isles: Britain and Ireland, Past and Future

(Hardback, Main)

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A vital history from the award-winning Financial Times journalist Philip Stephens on the dramatic century since the Anglo-Irish Treaty and partition.

These Divided Isles tells the story from both sides of the Irish Sea. Cutting through the layers of grievance and prejudice it explores the emotional intimacy and enmity of a relationship shaped by close familial ties and clashing national identities. It's a story written by big political leaders - David Lloyd George, Michael Collins, Winston Churchill and Eamon de Valera - and the millions of Irish emigrants who crossed from Ireland to Britain to begin new lives.

Today demography, Brexit and political logic have brought the possibility of Irish unity into view. Grounded in decades of personal contact and interviews with key policymakers across Britain and Europe, Stephens maps this complex relationship and asks how Ireland might deploy its history to inform its future rather than hold it in place.

Author Bio

Philip Stephens is an award-winning journalist and contributing editor at the Financial Times, where he was previously director of the Editorial Board and chief political commentator. Throughout his career, he has had unique access to foreign policymakers in Britain and around the world. Stephens has won the David Watt Prize for Outstanding Political Journalism; the Political Studies Association's Journalist of the Year; and Political Journalist of the Year in the Press Awards. He is the author of Politics and the Pound, Tony Blair: The Making of a World Leader and Britain Alone: The Path from Suez to Brexit. He is British and Irish, brought up in London but with roots in County Mayo.