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Original Title:	Michael Collins: A Biography
ISBN:	1570980756 (ISBN13: 9781570980756)
Edition Language:	English
Characters:	Michael Collins

Michael Collins: The Man Who Made Ireland

Tim Pat Coogan

Paperback | Pages: 480 pages

Rating: 4.07 | 1645 Users | 61 Reviews

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Title	:	Michael Collins: The Man Who Made Ireland
Author	:	Tim Pat Coogan
Book Format	:	Paperback
Book Edition	:	Anniversary Edition
Pages	:	Pages: 480 pages
Published	:	July 1st 1996 by Roberts Rinehart Publishers (first published October 4th 1990)
Categories	:	History. Biography. Cultural. Ireland. Nonfiction. European Literature. Irish Literature

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This was a difficult book to get through for a couple of reasons. First, the writing and then second, the history itself. The writing. I read a book by this author last year concerning the Irish Starvation of the mid 19th century and found that book quite compelling. That book tells me that this author does know how to write so I am puzzled by what I encountered in this book. There were numerous lengthy sentences liberally sprinkled with commas that made it difficult to understand who was talking or what was being described. I had to read these sentences several times to make sense of them and then wondered if it was worth the trouble since many of the discussions and events seemed rather trivial. I am guessing that the author's problem was the material he had to work with and the type of events depicted in this history. Initially it should be pointed out that it appears the author is the son of a veteran of this turbulent time so his objectivity may be open to question. The author refers repeatedly to this time as a "war" and specifically as the "Anglo-Irish War". After reading this book this was no war as I understand the use of that term in history. This was a campaign of terrorism and counter-terrorism. Much of what the author describes was, to me, like reading of the activities of contemporary street gang running up and down alleys at night approaching unsuspecting targets and shooting them in the head. Such acts would then be responded to by government officers storming into the homes of yet more unsuspecting innocent parties and shooting them in their beds. There were no heroes in this conflict on either side and this was another part of my difficulty. Nevertheless, the author needed to convey to the reader what exactly happened and he tried to do this. I suspect he had an abundance of source material and struggled to ensure the activities of what he might have considered to be patriotic acts were properly preserved and noted of record in his book. Sadly, there were a great many of these acts committed by people who were mentioned briefly and then had it noted that they were subsequently arrested or killed, or executed and were never mentioned again. This problem then occurred again when the author recounts the negotiations between the Irish and the English government. It seems like we are subjected to reading every note, diary, memorandum, telegram etc. that passed between the various parties throughout this process. It would have been far more advantageous to the reader had the author synthesized this material and then described the significance and critical stages of the process leading to its conclusion. Again, the reader is subjected to numerous run-on sentences littered with commas. It was, at times, quite maddening. But all was not lost. In the second half of the book, after the conclusion of the negotiations, the writing improves and the author's ability is demonstrated. This is the period during the early stages of the Irish Free State and the civil war that ultimately claims Collins' life.

The second difficulty I had, as I mentioned, is with the history itself. Thanks to my grandparents I have dual citizenship with Ireland and I am proud of that. It is this heritage that has induced me to learn more about the country of my grandparents. While this book is supposed to be a biography of Michael Collins and it is, it is also a fairly detailed history of the formation of the independence of Ireland in the early 20th century. There is a quote in the book attributed to Eamon de Valera as he comments on the death of an adversary "I do not approve but I must not pretend I do not understand". This history is brutal, barbaric, and completely outside the realm of accepted military behavior in or out of a war time environment. However, I enjoy reading British history and more than slightly familiar with their colonial activities. The English colonial history is a monument to ineptitude, arrogance, racism, exploitation, and brutality. It reads as though any life that wasn't English and, better yet, English nobility was something less than significant or worthy. The English conduct during the Irish Starvation of the 1840's was about as close to a government sanctioned genocide as it could get. To win their independence from the English yoke the Irish were never going to be able to create and field a conventional army and conduct a conventional war. Terrorism was their only alternative and the English certainly made that option very easy for them to take. The things that were done lead to retaliation and escalating acts of brutality and revenge. I can understand how this author can desire to paint these men and women as patriots and thus give his national history a nobility it should have but the acts are what they are and they are hard to accept and to read. This is a sad history and in de Valera's word I can't approve but I do understand.

Rating Out Of Books Michael Collins: The Man Who Made Ireland

Ratings: 4.07 From 1645 Users | 61 Reviews

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Extremely well detailed! A great biography of an interesting historical figure, this is a must read for anyone interested in the life of Michael Collins!

A brilliant, if difficult, read. The book requires a hefty familiarity with Irish history (and at times, geography), so it's not the first book on Irish history one should pick up. However, if you're looking for a detailed and incisive look at the formation of the Free State, the military actions that came before it, and the political wrangling that happened during the treaty process, this is your book. The tensions between Collins and de Valera are the central theme of the later 2/3rds of the

4.5. Excellent, at times tedious, biography of a very complicated Irishman

not a typical biography that starts in his childhood and goes up to adulthood. Rather about the series of events that led up to the signing of the Anglo- Irish treaty of 1921.

I am feeling revolutionary these days :)

Havta read Dev's version before I give a proper wording

Covering only six action-packed years -- from the Easter Rising in 1916 to his assassination in 1922 during the Irish Civil War -- Coogan's biography of the Irish nationalist leader is an undeniably exciting read. It also aspires to be the definitive word on Collins, and Coogan has assembled every last scrap of correspondence and interviewed seemingly every living participant to get the story down on paper.It is clear that the author has a great admiration for his subject, and a strong dislike