The loan was inspired by my having read a biography of Paddy Mayne, the SAS war hero which I had lent to my friend. I consequently had something of a degree of interest in military history.
I found this book completely fascinating. It is incredibly well researched and running to over 400 pages it includes much peripheral context. From it I gleaned insight into the history and individual style of the Oxford Colleges and how it was for people hoping to gain entrance to these in the late 1960s which was the same time that I was engaging in University entrance. The author is very much of the opinion that standards have fallen since those times and that the liberalisation that has taken place over that half century is very much a bad thing. I have some sympathy with his views on standards but mine relate more to scientific rigour rather than the cultural democritisation that he rails against. His views differ from mine in other spheres but more on that later.
When one has lived through a certain time and listened to media reports in a very immediate way it can be difficult to form a properly informed view of events. It has been very educatioal to read of the events of 'The Troubles' in Northern Ireland in a retrospective fashion. It was clearly an incredibly complex picture of the interaction of the British Army, the SAS, and the RUC, all of which should have had a common purpose but which had different priorities and restraints. For example the Army personel were there for a time limited period whereas the RUC were operating there centrally to their lives - there was no exit plan for them. Similarly the PIRA and OIRA operated to different standards and with different levels of violence and restraint.
Political angles are explored and the author is clearly very right wing and has got nothing good to say about labour poloitcians: Harold Wilson is treated in a particularly excoriating way. The Political Left are roundly condemned.
The analysis of events is forensic and fair. Much has been written about the events of the murder and much is incorrect. Some of this stems from some of the protagonists' attempts at damage limitation and avoidance of reputational damage. The author navigates his way through all this in a fascinatingly robust fashion and left me, as the reader feeling that the truth as far as it could be ascertained had been arrived it.
It is a thoroughly good read that left me feeling unlikely to be very satisfied with pretty much anything that I might read next.
