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Title: Tired and Outdated
Review: For years, this and Tim Pat Coogan's book on the IRA stood as the only significant volumes on the subject. Both Bell and Coogan have kept their books in print by issuing "revised" versions every few years. The truth is, neither book was very good to begin with, though Bell's journalism and craftmanship is slightly ahead of Coogan's sloppy, slapdash approach. They both suffer from a similar problem - they seem to be written from a great distance from the subject, more like a series of newspaper reports than a thoughtful, fully realized nonfiction book. Bell's book (or Coogan's for that matter) can't hold a candle to Ed Maloney's "Secret History of the IRA," which is, quite simply, the definitive account of the IRA, especially in its analysis of Gerry Adams and the Peace Process.
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