Product Description

Few leaders in history have been as mythologized as Michael Collins. Before his death at 31, he had fought in the Easter Rising, organized the IRA and out-spied British intelligence, negotiated the Anglo-Irish Treaty, and run the first independent government in Ireland. Peter Harts groundbreaking biography restores humanity to this mythical figure. Drawing on previously unknown sources, delving into Collinss pre-revolutionary past, and assessing the methodsand the costsof his rise to power, reveals a man of often ruthless ambition, more politician than soldier, whose friendships went no farther than his interests. A work as thrilling as it is authoritative.