This book explores the lives, deaths, enemies, and victims of the most powerful guerrillas of twentieth-century Ireland: those of the Cork I.R.A. between 1916 and 1923. Drawing on an unprecedented body of sources, including numerous interviews this is a uniquely intimate study of revolution, guerrilla war, and ethnic conflict.

The essays in The I.R.A. at War propose a new history of this Irish revolution: one that encompasses the whole of the island as well as Britain, all of the violence and its consequences, and the entire period from the Easter Rising to the end of the Civil War. Using new research and questioning old assumptions, these sparkling essays by Peter Hart address these and other controversies to suggest new ways of looking at the history of the Irish Revolution of 1916-23.

In the spring of 1918 the German army launched a series of devastating offensives against the French and British lines on the Western Front. Drawing on the dramatic personal accounts of men who were there--both commanders and ordinary grunts--the narrative brings to life the sheer suspense of waiting for the German attack, the desperate turmoil of the retreat, and the nail-biting turning of the tide that brought an end to the war. This history is unparalleled in its scope and depth.