As the title suggests, this is a wide-ranging book that addresses the turbulence that characterized the north of Ireland throughout the twentieth century. The volume consists of seventeen essays that range from a consideration of the 1907 Belfast dock strike to the catastrophic IRA bombing in Enniskillen on Poppy Day 1987 and the fracturing of the contemporary republican movement. The editors seek to group a diverse number of essays in a broad chronological and thematic manner with oftentimes mixed results. A number of the chapters are clearly the work of historians who have made their way through diverse archival and secondary sources producing original and highly engaging essays. Other contributions, although perhaps thoughtful and well written, fit uneasily into the volume. These include reflective essays and overviews of particular events in the political and social history of “the north of Ireland.”

One of the most compelling themes addresses the class and religious tension within industrial Belfast and considers how intercommunal relations were bedeviled by fear, sectarianism, and violence. For instance, John Gray addresses the doomed efforts of workers to organize Belfast's teeming docks in 1907. The labor unrest of that year revealed divisions within the workforce not only across confessional lines but also between skilled and unskilled workers. Many of the issues that conspired to undermine the dockers in Belfast would contribute to the failure of workers in Dublin six years later during the tumultuous 1913 lockout. Both events featured the work of the charismatic if unpredictable labor leader Jim Larkin and accusations of betrayal by British labor unions reluctant to come to the aid of their Irish counterparts. In a northern context, the fact that serious rioting broke out in Catholic parts of Belfast during the 1907 unrest enabled Unionist leaders to regain the initiative by blaming the strike on nationalist agitators out to undermine the state.

The troubled history of Belfast is addressed at length by Alan F. Parkinson, who chronicles its descent into the mayhem and murder during the birth of the northern state in the 1920s. Parkinson's work helps contextualize Peter Collins's case study of Belfast in 1932, a year that witnessed an array of seminal political events throughout the island of Ireland. He addresses the circumstances that led to a very brief moment of cross-community solidarity that galvanized working-class Belfast and forced a frightened Unionist elite to address the real grievances of the urban poor. Some of the best chapters in this book almost inevitably address the difficult evolution of industrial Belfast throughout the twentieth century. This includes Jim McDermott's consideration of the significance of the 1936 Lancaster Street riots that left ten people dead, eighty-three seriously wounded, and over 2,500 citizens homeless. Graham Walker and Aaron Edwards also address divisions within working-class communities in chronicling the efforts of the Northern Ireland Labour Party to offer a viable alternative to workers from the early days of the state through the 1970s. Their essay illustrates how time and again the efforts of labor leaders were undermined by the constitutional issues that inhibited the development of a successful cross-community party that could represent the interests of working-class Belfast.

A number of contributors succeed in arguing for a need to understand the level of mistrust and suspicion that animated Protestants and Catholics, unionists and nationalists throughout this period. This is especially true of Dennis Kennedy's essay, “Border Trouble: Unionist Perceptions of and Responses to the Independent Irish State, 1921–1939.” Kennedy succeeds in addressing how the construction of a fearful one-party unionist state that was determined to marginalize its opponents was influenced by the irredentist rhetoric and policies of successive Dublin governments.

Other essays address the high politics of the north during a century of transformation in the north. Éamon Phoenix writes an incisive biographical sketch of nationalist leader Cahir Healy, explaining the challenges he confronted in trying to unite his coreligionists divided by ideology, tactics, and geography. Another chapter by Phoenix explores the tension and conflict within the nationalist community in the north from 1900 through the Anglo-Irish War, complementing his consideration of Healy. Here he pays particular attention to the extraordinary career of Joe Devlin and the influence of the Irish Parliamentary Party in the north.

George Boyce's essay on Carson's “respectable rebels,” the Ulster Volunteer Force, fits quite well in this collection. He reminds us that although this militia may have introduced the gun into twentieth-century Irish politics, it also acted to curb and control the passions of a diverse Protestant community. This was done during a time of acute crisis that made civil war appear inevitable to many in both Ireland and the United Kingdom. Boyce points out that the Ulster Volunteer Force channeled emotions into a movement that empowered northern Protestants and fostered a high degree of solidarity within a community that felt itself betrayed and besieged.

The editors and many of the contributors to this volume succeed best in exploring how sectarianism exacerbated class and political divisions in the north of Ireland and helped promote fear, mistrust, and ultimately violence. This is the strength of the volume as it enhances our understanding of a community that remains deeply divided.