Northern Ireland is well known for the enduring conflict there over its constitutional arrangements within the United Kingdom. To follow the line taken by the American press, however, it is a religious war in which Catholics and Protestants commit atrocities in their struggle for power.

The Dynamics of Conflict, by renowned scholarly duo Ruane and Todd, is an excellent corrective to this common misconception. The book takes readers through the conflict step-by-step, explaining how the changing relationships between nationalists and unionists, Irish and British, natives and settlers Catholics and Protestants, have evolved over the centuries. Despite the evolution of those relationships, what is still more remarkable is the enduring constancy. Overlapping badges of identity have created two strong and self-conscious communities in a very small region where communal politics have subsumed most internal class, gender, and philosophic divisions.

Ruane and Todd show how the 'Troubles' in Northern Ireland since the 1960s can be seen as the most recent manifestation of an enduring rivalry restructured from an all-Ireland basis into a Northern Ireland-only basis by the constitutional 'settlement' of the early 1920s which divided the island into the nationalist 26-County 'Free State' (now Republic of Ireland) and the unionist 6-County Northern Ireland.

The text predates the Good Friday Agreement, but diputes over the implementation of that settlement are a testament to its quality of scholarship.

This work must be seen along with the works of John McGarry and Brendan O'Leary, Paul Bew, and Arthur Miller as essential for a good understanding of the nature of the Northern Ireland conflict.

Steve Bruce has, as he expresses it himself, based this book on "long unstructured interviews, or as we sociologists call it, talking to people". It does show. Sometimes I wonder whether he hasn't gone a little too far in understanding the views of his interviewees and in sympathising with them. This does not need to be a fault, however, for here the loyalists talk themselves about what they want and how they feel.

The author has succeeded in highlighting some important and little-known facts, such as the existence of rational political initiatives from loyalists (the policy doocuments Common Sense and Beyond the Religious Divide). However he also tells us why this kind of documents do not need to mirror the views of the loyalist community as a whole.

Together with Fionnuala O'Connor's In Search of a State and Tim Pat Coogan's history of the IRA, this book constitutes a vital part of the recommended reading package for everybody wanting to understand the Troubles.

James Wiltens has carefully chosen 60 or so of plants found in Northern California that can easily be identified by beginning naturalists and botanists as edible or poisonous plants. Each plant covered in the book includes information about where to find it, how to prepare and eat it (or avoid it), as well as interesting trivia about some of the species. Wiltens has also included a drawing of each plant, noting its key identification features. Be sure to read Wiltens' introduction, covering the do's and don'ts and safety of flower collecting!

I had a fine time reading Exploring the North Coast. It covers all the little towns and tourist spots all the way up the coast on hwy1 and hwy 101. More interesting are the different Rocks and Rock formations all up the coast. The California coast has some of the greatest and most powerful Rocks of any place, and this guide mentions more than a few. However it does cover the disturbing trend that civilzation has of mutilating and destroying the giant rocks that get in their way. Like Goat Rock who was hacked away and dumped to form a useless harbor. This book is unique in that it is inclusive of some information about California Indians, in the context of where they live. This information helps one get a more well-rounded view of the history of California.

Be warned: this is a very small book, but it is worth both the wait and the expense to anyone who had a relative in Italy through wrold War II. It gives a brief summary of the fighting from North Africa to Rome, and then provides a first-person account of the rest of the Italian Campaign. There aren't as many pictures as I expected, but those that are there are new (to me at least) and representative of the text. The book gives the reader an idea of what it was like in Italy for the average soldier.

Very interesting book years ahead in talking about the troubles we now face. I would assume this would be brought back out given the state of the war on terrorism. Ok so he does not have a boatload of facts, but that was in 1992 - look at what has happened over the past 10 years. He comments were right on. There are lost of interesting stories from Africa to Europe and central Asia. This book provides a look into the French intelligence agency that for me a new given that most books in the area deal with the CIA, MI5 or the KGB. If you read this book you will be talking about it to your friends for weeks after you have finished it. The book is written well and keeps moving, it does not get bogged down in "the French are the best" hyperbole.

i think it is a must for any rpg playe

Spice up your campaign with the fury of the Norsemen! This incomparable sourcebook includes details on rune magic, viking adventurer classes, lots of great adventures (including the infamous Kobold Champions...), and much more. All in all, you get: A map folder, 4 (!) more folders of uncut 3-D buildings and creatures, 2 books (96 pages!), and a giant, full-color, 2-sided poster map. Whip out your CD player, and get Wagner's Ride of the Valkyries going... your campaign will never be the same!

Poems in a present tense expanded by the poet's personal history and deployment of ambiguous metaphor. The tones of these diverse poems are often not happy, but they are content. The language is vernacular and low-keyed. These qualities make the clarity and depth of emotion revealed in the best poems all the more remarkable. To be read along with the author's "Beyond Love," (San Francisco, 1968), if you may find it.

The Osprey Order of Battle series presents the military enthusiast with a microanalysis of famous battles, in this case devoting six volumes to the pivotal three-day Civil War Battle of Gettysburg. This tenth volume in the series (the Gettysburg books do not appear sequentially) is devoted to the disposition of Lee's Army of Northern Virginia on July 3, 1863, while the seventh volume does the same for Meade's entrenched Army of the Potomac. This book provides comprehensive organization diagrams, an analysis of operational objectives, and most importantly where each unit was at what point during the final day of this pivotal battle, including both the "tooth" combat elements and the vital "tail" support troops. The operational analysis is quite excellent and surprisingly concise, albeit more so from the Confederate perspective than the Union. Included are dozens of detailed maps, charts and photographs, which provide new insights into this most analyzed Civil War battle.

While all this detailed information will be on great interest to those who want to study what happened in Gettysburg in minute detail, I really think the chief utility of this particular volume is for the war gamming enthusiast who wants to give Pickett's Charge a second chance at taking the Bloody Angle on Cemetery Ridge. I have used these books to create a brigade level version of the Battle of Gettysburg using Sierra's Civil War 2 computer game and I suspect it would be of even greater use to those who have the massive Gettysburg board game. I have found that not only can you give Lee a second chance to break the Union center, but you can also play out a counterattack by Meade that might destroy the Army of Northern Virginia effectively end the Civil War in time for the Fourth of July in 1863. The Order of Battle books meet their objective in providing the most detailed information ever published about the great battles of history. In addition to Gettysburg this series has also covered the French & Indian War Battle of Quebec in 1759 and the World War II German counter-offensive at the Battle of the Ardennes in 1944. It will be interesting to see what this series tackles next, although the Battle of Waterloo seems an obvious choice.