As we near the centennial of the Anglo–Irish Treaty, this excellent new collection of essays urges scholars to reconsider this foundational document. Criticised from the moment of its signing by disappointed Sinn Féiners, the Treaty's reputation among scholars has also suffered because it has been tied to the political failure of its primary defenders. The essays contained in this volume re-focus attention on the document itself, the debates over it in the Dáil, and the split within Sinn Féin over its terms. Such a volume is much-needed; Frank Pakenham's Peace by ordeal remains, over eighty years since its publication, the major source on the Treaty. The editors’ intent was to provide ‘a forensic examination of the contents of the debate and its participants’ in order to ‘re-examine the dynamics of this critical period in Irish political history’ (p. 2).

One of the strengths of this volume is the way several authors bring attention to previously neglected aspects of the debates. Foremost among these is Mary McAuliffe's excellent chapter on the pro-Treaty women's organisation Cumann na Saoirse. McAuliffe details how pro-Treaty women initially attempted to moderate Cumann na mBan's opposition to the Treaty, before breaking away and founding a separate organisation. They remained active through the Civil War, holding meetings, providing intelligence, and, most infamously, assisting Free State authorities with searches of female prisoners. McAuliffe's chapter shows that treatyite women, drawing on the lengthy organisational experience of women such as Jennie Wyse-Power, were the first treatyite group to organise politically. Tony Varley's chapter ably looks at the role of farmers and agriculture in the debates, a similarly understudied issue that resounded throughout the 1920s. Martin O'Donoghue's outstanding chapter re-introduces Irish Parliamentary Party stalwarts into the debates, as they are often completely ignored between the 1918 election and the creation of the National League Party in the mid-1920s.

Another set of chapters provides new insights into established questions. Mel Farrell analyses in detail the treatyites’ rhetorical and political strategies, underlining the use of soldier deputies to appeal to veterans of the military struggle. Farrell detects a fair amount of planning and savvy in the treatyites’ inclusive strategy, but also highlights the seeds of the coalition's ultimate dissolution. Similarly, Sinéad McCoole fills out depictions of the six female T.D.s by emphasizing their biographies, particularly their years of activism prior to their selection as T.D.s. John Dorney challenges the frequent assumption that the anti-treatyites were impractical ideologues by arguing that most actually believed themselves to be fighting a defensive struggle against anti-democratic treatyites, a flawed settlement, and an I.R.B. cabal. A number of essays – most prominently those by Liam Weeks, Mícheál Ó Fathartaigh, Slava Jankin Mikhaylov and Alexander Herzog, Brian Hanley, and Eunan O'Halpin and Mary Staines – debunk the notion that the split was rooted in class divisions. For example, Weeks and Ó Fathartaigh, using a database prepared by Mikhaylov and Herzog, plot and analyse frequency of word usage by deputies to conclude that there was very little separating pro- and anti-Treaty deputies other than the terms of the Treaty itself, a conclusion echoed in the other chapters.

My main criticism of the volume is the lack of a significant historiographical discussion at the outset. While most essay authors engage with the historiography regarding their particular topics, the volume as a whole would have benefited from a thorough dissection of those arguments in one place. This is particularly true of a book that seeks to overturn class-based interpretations of the Treaty. The recent work of Gavin Foster, which puts forward a more expansive definition of class than simply one rooted in vocation, is mentioned in one chapter but not really refuted or discussed at length. Similarly, a conclusion that Sinn Féin was ‘monolithic’ (p. 221) should at least address the work by Fergus Campbell that shows deep divisions over the land issue. And the body of scholarship by John Regan equating the Treaty with counter-revolution is not brought up in a significant way. A historiographical introduction would have illustrated better how the document has been treated by scholars and also the freshness of the work in the current volume.

There also are some minor issues with attribution throughout; for example, a quote from Regan is attributed to the present reviewer in the introduction (p. 8). That said, these relatively small-scale criticisms are mostly about how the volume is presented, rather than about the stellar quality of the essays contained within it, which are thought-provoking, well-researched, and innovative in terms of method and topic.