List Price: $18.95
Save: $8.87 (47%)

FREE Shipping on orders with at least $25 of books.

Only 11 left in stock (more on the way).

Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. Gift-wrap available.

Turn on 1-Click ordering for this browser

Want it Tuesday, April 12? Order within and choose Two-Day Shipping at checkout. Details

Ship to:

Select a shipping address:

Buy Used

$4.31

FREE Shipping on orders over $25.

Used: Good | Details

Sold by BigHeartedBooks

Fulfilled by Amazon

Condition: Used: Good

Comment: This item is gently used in good or better condition. If it is a textbook it may not have supplements. It may have some moderate wear and possibly include previous owner's name, some markings and/or is a former library book. We ship within 1 business day and offer no hassle returns. Big Hearted Books shares its profits with schools, churches and non-profit groups throughout New England. Thank you for your support!

Turn on 1-Click ordering for this browser

Have one to sell? Sell on Amazon

Flip to back Flip to front

Listen Playing... Paused You're listening to a sample of the Audible audio edition.
Learn more

See all 3 images

A Secret History of the IRA Paperback – November 17, 2003

by Ed Moloney (Author)

23 customer reviews

See all 6 formats and editions Hide other formats and editions

Price

New from

Used from

Hardcover

"Please retry"

—

$10.32

$0.01

Paperback

"Please retry"

$10.08

$3.69

$0.01

There is a newer edition of this item:

Secret History of the Ira: Gerry Adams And The Thirty Year War
(2)

An epic portrayal of one of the twentieth century's longest wars―based on unprecedented access to all the players.

Filled with disclosures and based on the author's unprecedented access to the Irish Republican Army, this explosive book sparked controversy when it was first published in hardcover. Delving deeply into the inner workings, furtive plots, and deadly rivalries of the Irish Republican Army, Ed Moloney, who has covered the IRA since the late 1970s, delivers a riveting account of how one of the world's oldest and most ruthless terrorist groups was maneuvered into ending its thirty-year war with Britain. With revelations including the IRA's long and astonishing associations with Qaddafi's regime, Margaret Thatcher's secret diplomacy with Gerry Adams, the Catholic Church's clandestine negotiations with Republican leadership, and hitherto undisclosed activities of the American government under Bill Clinton, A Secret History rewrites, with dramatic results, the story of this intractable conflict. In particular, fascinating material on Adams's Machiavellian rise to power establishes the IRA leader as one of the most complex political figures of our time. Like Thomas Friedman in From Beirut to Jerusalem, Moloney brings a sharply intelligent reporter's eye to a tangled history often baffling to outsiders. #1 international bestseller; A Washington Post 2002 Rave. 8 pages of illustrations

A Secret History of the IRA

$10.08 FREE Shipping on orders with at least $25 of books. Only 11 left in stock (more on the way). Ships from and sold by Amazon.com. Gift-wrap available.

Frequently Bought Together

Total price: $50.68

Buy the selected items together

This item:A Secret History of the IRA by Ed Moloney Paperback $10.08
In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
FREE Shipping on orders over $25. Details
Voices from the Grave: Two Men's War in Ireland by Ed Moloney Paperback $18.16
In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
FREE Shipping on orders over $25. Details
Armed Struggle: The History of the IRA by Richard English Paperback $22.44
In Stock.
Ships from and sold by Amazon.com.
FREE Shipping on orders over $25. Details

Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought

Page 1 of 1 Start overPage 1 of 1

This shopping feature will continue to load items. In order to navigate out of this carousel please use your heading shortcut key to navigate to the next or previous heading.

Ed Moloney

22

Paperback
$18.16
Richard English

11

Paperback
$22.44
Eamon Collins

32

Paperback
$12.46
Tim Pat Coogan

16

Paperback
$19.56
Kevin Toolis

30

Paperback
$11.19
David Beresford

30

Paperback
$14.95

Customers Viewing This Page May Be Interested In These Sponsored Links

(What's this?)

1. Yusintekrepair Taiwan

Repair, Refurbish, Overhaul for manufacturing equipment parts

www.yusintekrepair.com/

Ad feedback

NO_CONTENT_IN_FEATURE

Product Details

Paperback: 624 pages
Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; Reprint edition (November 17, 2003)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0393325024
ISBN-13: 978-0393325027
Product Dimensions: 6.2 x 1.1 x 9.2 inches
Shipping Weight: 1.8 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (23 customer reviews)
Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #539,054 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #3471 in Books > History > Europe > Great Britain
- #19989 in Books > History > World

Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?

Customer Reviews

4.0 out of 5 stars

5 star		52%
4 star		22%
3 star		9%
2 star		4%
1 star		13%

See all 23 customer reviews

Share your thoughts with other customers

Write a customer review

Top Customer Reviews

This book will stand the test of time.

By A Customer on October 21, 2002

Format: Hardcover

With all the books that have been written on the Irish Troubles (Coogan, Bell, Holland, etc), its hard to believe that any new insights or perspectives could be possible, but 'A Secret History' is stunning in this regard. It absorbs all that has been written before and goes deeper, using inside sources in the Republican Movement to offer a view of the Peace Process that is enlightening, to say the least. Gerry Adams, in particular, emerges as a monumental contemporary Irish political figure - cunning, brilliant, ruthless, daring. The story of his engineering an end to the war in Northern Ireland has been told many times, but what is not generally known is that he did so by deliberatly misleading/betraying his own movement. Whether or not you think this is a good thing (it resulted in the Good Friday Accords) is for each individual reader to decide. But the author of this book, Ed Maloney, does a tremendous historical service by giving people a deeper and more informed version of events than anything published so far.

Comment 17 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback...

Thank you for your feedback.

Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again

Report abuse

Deeply Flawed

By Douglas on November 6, 2004

Format: Paperback

"Masterful and definitive", "authoritative and devastating", "extraordinary", "this dramatic book", "superb ". These descriptions are all taken from the cover of the paperback version of Ed Moloney's No.1 best-seller. Moreover, The Blanket has published a number of largely glowing reviews. Why then did I find the book so disappointing, irritating and ultimately boring?

Much of the book is taken up with the peace process of the 1980s and 1990s and the series of negotiations that took place. Other books have documented these events and this period just as well - Brendan O' Brien, Eamonn Mallie and David McKittrick, Déaglán de Breadún and Peter Taylor. What exactly does Moloney's book add to these earlier accounts apart from the apparent notion that Gerry Adam's ideas about changing Republican strategy dated further back than we were previously led to believe, that Charles Haughey was more involved than previously met the eye, and that the Brits had managed to get touts to senior levels in the Republican movement? None of this seemed to be of earth shattering importance or insight to this reader, and certainly not surprising.

What is new is Moloney's detailed descriptions of the two IRA Conventions in 1996 and 1997. If he is to be believed, and there seems little reason to question the accuracy, Moloney clearly got hold of a very good source, presumably someone opposed to the line that Adams and others were pursuing. Interestingly, these sections of the book have been given little prominence in reviews of the book that I've read.

After trudging my way through over 400 pages, the book suddenly and inexplicably brings the whole story up to the present, or at least 2001, when the IRA made its historic statement about putting weapons "beyond use".Read more ›

1 Comment 34 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback...

Thank you for your feedback.

Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again

Report abuse

Honest survey of the shift from republican tradition

By A Customer on December 12, 2002

Format: Hardcover

Perhaps overwhelming for the beginner, but for those informed about the evolution of the IRA and its movement away from the Green Book and the armalite to the British and Irish parliaments, Moloney offers corrective and sobering detail of the Adams and McGuinness-led coterie and their domination of the present Provos in both the IRA and Sinn Fein...Moloney has painstakingly assembled his evidence after long years spent bending the ear of many a hard man. As a native of Belfast and a skilled journalist, he writes without the verve of J. Bowyer Bell or the swagger of Tim Pat Coogan, but his own version of IRA history fills in details previously unreported by mainstream authors or known by the public crucial to a nuanced understanding of how the Provo IRA via SF came to be the acceptable face of republicanism today.

Comment 13 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback...

Thank you for your feedback.

Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again

Report abuse

Blessed are the peacemakers

By S. Zayas on June 3, 2006

Format: Paperback

Ed Moloney, amazingly, tapped sources deep within the IRA and Sinn Fein command structures to uncover the real story - at least from a Republican point of view - of the birth of the Good Friday Agreement. If even half of what Moloney says in the book is true, Gerry Adams might be one of the most skilled, clever politicians of our time. The book certainly suggests that Mr. Adams and elements in the IRA have not been fairly credited for their roles in negotiating a "peace" in Northern Ireland that seems to be holding eight years on.

Only a minimal understanding of "The Troubles" in Northern Ireland is necessary as Moloney gives lots of good background information about the history of the IRA, the rise of the Provisional IRA and its transition from terror organization to a something of a "legitimate" political organization. Moloney does not glorify the IRA or justify its actions, but gives it due credit (at least certain of its members) for kick-starting a peace process which has eased centuries of sectarian strife.

How the IRA moved from an uncompromising demand for a unified (socialist republic) Ireland, to be won by armed struggle, to acceptance of a divided island (albeit one more responsive in the North to the needs of its Catholic/Republican/Nationalist citizenry) is what this book is really about. That this major shift in IRA policy came about due to the actions of one of the group's (former) hardliners is utterly fascinating.

Anyone that is interested in Irish politics or history - or even politics generally - should read this book!

Comment 4 people found this helpful. Was this review helpful to you? Yes No Sending feedback...

Thank you for your feedback.

Sorry, we failed to record your vote. Please try again

Report abuse

See all 23 customer reviews (newest first)

Write a customer review

Most Recent Customer Reviews

Well researched balanced study of the rise of the IRA ...

Well researched balanced study of the rise of the IRA. Too much focus on Gerry Adams as others have notrd

Published 13 months ago by Jesse McCarthy

Good but not definitive

I'm sure it's difficult writing a book about the IRA that isn't going to raise hackles on one side or the other and in general, Ed Moloney does a pretty good job but it isn't... Read more

Published on January 18, 2014 by TimtheGooner

Detailed and hard to follow but enlighting

Always wondered about the IRA and their beginning. My eyes were opened when I found out the IRA goal was not to free the Irish people but to expel the English only to place the... Read more

Published on January 6, 2014 by Sherman

Adams' rise through the ranks of PIRA

Ed Moloney has written a very good account of the rise of Gerry Adams through the ranks of both wings of the Provisional movement in Ireland. Read more

Published on May 15, 2013 by gimscot

Fascinating

This book contains an interesting history and many important anecdotes. Through this, one can learn how the IRA was formed, what its driving ideology was throughout its existence,... Read more

Published on November 27, 2011 by J. Smallridge

The Manchurian Terrorist

According to Ed Moloney's 2002 book, the real hero behind the Good Friday Agreement that ended the Troubles of Northern Ireland a decade ago was not John Hume, David Trimble, or... Read more

Published on May 8, 2008 by Bill Slocum

informative

the degree of knowledge the author has acquired on the workings of this secret organization is remarkable.

Published on February 12, 2007 by Michael Rubin

Irish Roots

I finally visited Ireland a couple of years ago. The typical American seeking their Irish roots. On my mother's side her Irish ancestors are from the South and on father's side... Read more

Published on July 7, 2006 by Scott Bell

Not a good book

I didnt like this book at all.First of all, when the author chose the title Secret History he wasnt kidding. Read more

Published on December 14, 2005 by Jorge I. Villanueva

Cloak , Dagger and Armalite

Ed Moloney's controversial new book suggests that Gerry Adams, the leader of Sinn Fein, the political wing of the Irish Republican Army (IRA), should have been awarded the Nobel... Read more

Published on October 1, 2005 by Declan Hayes

Set up an Amazon Giveaway

Amazon Giveaway allows you to run promotional giveaways in order to create buzz, reward your audience, and attract new followers and customers. Learn more

This item: A Secret History of the IRA

Set up a giveaway