To face a bibliographer's task of assembling the titles and appraising the content of scholarly books on twentieth-century Ireland is to think of a number of works which one would like to see and which do not yet exist. First among these, surely, would be a History of Ireland in the twentieth century which would be social and economic as well as political, analytical as well as chronological, and include the historical background from 1914 or 1921, or perhaps even from1891, of both the Irish republic and Northern Ireland; it would take due account of the historical inheritance as well as of the new influences and forces which belong uniquely to the twentieth century andaffect all states everywhere.