Publisher's Synopsis
Presenting political, historical, cultural and literary perspectives on the Irish border, this volume brings together approaches from different disciplines to assess the changing role and percepton of the border.;Following a contextual and historical introduction, a broad political analysis by Paul Arthur places the North-South and British-Irish relationships in their international setting. Ged Martin provides a history of the Partition, and Ian S. Wood brings this history up to the early-1960s in a contribution on the IRA border campaign. In a longer historical view, Ullrich Kockel develops a revised reading of the peculiar Scots-Ulster link.;Moving towards contemporary concerns, Etain Tannam explores the changing cross-border relationship in the light of European regional policies in the 1980s and 1990s, while Steve Bruce gives a pessimistic assessment of an enduring Unionist attitude towards the border.;Three chapters devoted to culture and identity end the book. The first focuses on different language policies north and south of the border; the second on literature as a source for tracing the development of a border mentality in Ireland; and the third on the development of border politics as expressed in 20th-century literature.
