Product Description

Few people have had as profound an impact on their country’s history in so short a time as Michael Collins had on twentieth-century Ireland. Dead at thirty-one, he remains a hero and an icon both in his native country and abroad. Peter Hart’s compelling and comprehensive biography draws on many hitherto unseen sources to explore the life of Michael Collins and to ask what made him such an extraordinary and complex man. Set to become the definitive work, Hart’s is the first book fully to investigate Collins’s life before becoming a revolutionary and the first to take a critical look at his rise to power and its consequences.

‘Brusque, unsentimental and sensible’ Sunday Independent

‘Excellent…Hart cuts through Collins’ aura of secular sainthood, showing him to be a complex figure’ Daily Telegraph

‘Moves beyond hagiography or demonology and seeks to restore the complexity of real people trying to make history’ Irish Times

‘A triumph’ Irish Review

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #39740 in Books
• Published on: 2006-09-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 485 pages

Review
"'Brusque, unsentimental and sensible' Sunday Independent 'Excellent...Hart cuts through Collins' aura of secular sainthood, showing him to be a complex figure' Daily Telegraph 'Moves beyond hagiography or demonology and seeks to restore the complexity of real people trying to make history' Irish Times 'A triumph' Irish Review"

About the Author

Peter Hart is the chair of Irish studies at the Memorial University of Newfoundland in Canada and an award-winning author, of, among other titles, The IRA and Its Enemies.

Customer Reviews

The Real Michael Collins seems a lot less interesting
Having garnered controversay in his debates with Meda Ryan, Hart sets out to do the same again by painting Collins as an unimportant, disliked power grabber whos acheivements (which Hart thinks little of) could have been accomplished by any of the few thousand men involved in the struggle at the time.

In the introduction Hart sets out to create a completely researched work which will become the starting place for all future Collins research. The first chapter on Collins's childhood is mainly a re-hashing of Tim Pat Coogans work, before adding the only new material in the book, Micks time in England in various financial institutions and his carear in the GAA, which to my knowledge has never been invistigated in any previous biographies. At this stage I would recommend the reader to put the book down. From here on in he goes back to re-hashing Coogan as well as adding his own side, sometimes snide, comments, such as reffering to Collins and Boland as "Bakers in Chief" when they sent a cake to de Valera with a key in it when in Lincon Jail. Hart seems to be of the openion that people who read the book are more interested in him and his "witty" remarks as apposed to Collins. He is sadly mistaken.

I would only recomend it for the second and third chapters, and then just bearly.

"Mick: The Real Michael Collins"
This book promises so much and yet seems to deliver little.

I cannot understand why Peter Hart bothered to research a biography of a man whose reputation he cannot understand and whom he appears to consider an insignificant footnote in Irish history "...It is wrong to pick out Collins as someone apart in his daring or courage: he was nothing special in this regard."

Peter Hart makes no attempt to acknowledge or explain the legend which has grown up around the memory of Michael Collins. He is at great pains to emphasise the poor qualities of the man and his limitations as leader, politician and friend; presumably in an attempt to balance other, more favourable, biographies.

If this book (as the cover jacket blurb suggests) does "... become the definitive work..." on Collins, it will be the magic, the humanity of his memory, which will be lost forever.

The Real Mick - Says Who ??
Peter Hart has clearly done a lot of homework. This effort bearly scrapes the rating of this book up to two stars.

Notwithstanding the research effort, Mr. Hart has managed to present a negative spin about the achievements of one of the most important figures in Irish history. Any positive sentiment is more than counterbalanced by a retrospective rationalising that anyone could have made the same contribution to history. Not only is this a totally spurious suggestion, it consigns this work to one of conjecture as distinct from a worthy historical commentary.

Critically, Mr. Hart misses the opportunity to set the escalation of conflict in the context of the impact on ordinary citizens and how the decisions Collins made impacted on that. Instead we are overloaded with quotes of minor significance, at most confirming that the research was done.

On the point of formatting, Mr. Hart needs a new editor. Sentences meander tortuously. The grammatical structure needs attention, in particular an irritating habit of inserting multiple points within brackets tangental to the point being made. Get to the point and stick to it !

On a second point of formatting, Mr. Hart has gone to the trouble of providing more than forty pages of notes, which have not been referenced in the text. Having discovered this wealth of references, one has to search the text to find the relevance.

In summary, this book could easily have been shortened by a quarter. It was significantly cheaper than other works on this subject, but definitely not a saving.

I would avoid another Peter Hart book.