- Paperback: 200 pages
- Publisher: Picador; 3 edition (7 April 2000)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0330346482
- ISBN-13: 978-0330346481
- Product Dimensions: 19.2 x 13 x 2.8 cm
- Average Customer Review: 3.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 343,876 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- See Complete Table of Contents
Rebel Hearts: Journeys Within the IRA's Soul
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More About the Author
Product Description
Product Description
Rebel Hearts is a detailed and revealing account of the psychological underworld of Irish Republicanism. 'Stunning. It brings the dehumanizing horror of the Troubles into a painful, dazzling light.' Simon Hoggart, Sunday Tribune
Book Description
Kevin Toolis investigated the lives of men and women who, for the twenty-five years of the IRA's war with Britain formed the backbone of its effort. Each chapter explores a world in which history and the republican (and loyalist) interpretation of it dominate lives and deaths. Rebel Hearts does not seek to explain the roots of the conflict in Northern Ireland in a direct historical narrative form, but constructs, and reconstructs, its history through a series of connected and highly detailed individual portraits.The book is now updated with two long new chapters on all the latest developments. 'One of the strengths of Kevin Toolis's compelling, chilling, coldly brilliant book is that it reawakens the mind to the reality of why they took place ... easily the best book I have read on the Troubles' John Sweeney, Literary Review 'An honest and important book, essential for anyone who wants to assess what has been happening for the past twenty-five years in 'Northern Ireland' and what is likely to happen next' Robert Kee, Irish Times
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
10 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
For anyone who would like to peer behind the platitudes of the politicians, the ranting of the religious bigots and the high minded rhetoric of the zealots this is the book to read. Kevin Toolis has managed to obtain some remarkable admissions from the front line operators and their bosses. He also writes, with sensitivity, of those who have suffered from the deaths of their relatives.
The suffering of the victims is placed within the context of confusion and cynicism on both sides of the divide. From a Southern Irish family himself Toolis is balanced and tough minded in his approach. On a personal level his feeling and sympathy for the victims is often poignantly expressed by descriptions of the quiet, relentless and unendending misery of the families of the dead..
I thought this was an honest and enlightening book. One of its virtues is that Kevin Toolis does not proselytise but enables readers to draw their own conclusions.
9 of 10 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This is one of the best books about the north of Ireland that one can buy. Peter Taylor's books are very good for a British person looking in, while Tim Pat Coogan's come from a historically nationalist point of view. This I feel is the only book to get into the mind set of Republicans living in the Six Counties.
It is an unbiased, critical analysis of all that the author sees around him. He fully acknowledges his own shortcomings as he is basically a war correspondent feeding off what is around him. He has fantastically entertaining stories with the IRA man Dermot Finucane and also shows the terrible narrowmindedness of these people that traps them in a victim's frame of mind.
An excellent read and a must buy.
6 of 7 people found the following review helpful
Format:Paperback
This book stunned me. As a student of the conflict and ex-squaddie (Derry-early 70's). I rate this one of the BEST books I have ever read! For me, his unjudgemental style speaks volumes, especially when he listens to a tape of the the last confession of an informant, just before the poor sod gets the coup-de-grace from the IRA nutting squad.
Another of his case studies is of a guy called Paddy Flood, a young Derry man brought up with the troubles erupting on his doorstep. Coming from a community with very little prospects in terms of jobs, votes and civil rights. He embraced republicanism as his truth - the way he saw the world. After school you riot, after Bloody Sunday the gunning down of people on a civil rights march, you join YOUR army. Flood's downfall was apparently down to his loyalty to a frail Wife. If you read this book, beware you are going to be challenged, so be forewarned you may have to ditch your prejudices.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
Unconvincing and absurd
Elsnocar was right. I bought this book in hardback when i first came out expecting it to be a 'journey within the IRA's soul' and what I got was a ridiculous account of a "date"... Read more
Published on 15 Oct 2004
Very lazy and egotistical book
This was a major disappointment, the author reworks his newspaper articles to produce a very hit and miss book. Getting paid again in the process can't be bad - but the book is. Read more
Published on 28 May 2004 by "elsnoscar"
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