These Divided Isles: Britain and Ireland, Past and Future

by Philip Stephens, Martyn Swain (Read by)

Overview

Evoking the tumultuous history of the relationship between Britain and Ireland, These Divided Isles investigates the complexities of culture and colonization to ask what the future holds for both countries.

Ireland is Britain's closest neighbor—the sea crossing from Scotland measures only twelve miles. Ireland was also its first conquered territory in what became Britain's empire. The two nation's stories have been intertwined since Anglo-Norman invaders crossed the Irish Sea during the twelfth century.

These Divided Isles tells the extraordinary history of the past century in this tumultuous relationship, from the Anglo-Irish treaty of 1922 to the present day. This is a tale of deep division between Catholic nationalism and Protestant unionism, of wars and terrorist violence, and of occasional moments of great courage on the part of British and Irish leaders.

Today, the post-Brexit weakening of the UK's constitutional ties has coincided with the march of demography in Northern Ireland as the Protestant unionist majority continues to shrink. Sinn Féin's historic string of electoral victories in Northern Ireland since 2022 has once more resurfaced the unfinished business of partition. Here, Philip Stephens explores how Ireland might escape its troubled past by deploying history to inform the future rather than hold it in place.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9798228659315
Publisher:	Tantor
Publication date:	12/02/2025
Product dimensions:	5.30(w) x 7.50(h) x (d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Philips Stephens is an award-winning journalist and contributing editor at the Financial Times, where he was previously director of the Editorial Board and chief political commentator. Both British and Irish, having been brought up in London with roots in Co Mayo, his illustrious career has landed him unique access to foreign policymakers in Britain and around the world. Stephens has won the David Watt Prize for Outstanding Political Journalism and Political Journalist of the Year in the British Press Awards. He is the author of Politics and the Pound, Tony Blair, and Britain Alone, but These Troubled Isles is his first book to be published in America. Philip lives in England.

Martyn Swain is a former NATO simultaneous interpreter. For more than thirty years, he interpreted in French and English for the world's senior diplomats and international organizations. He interpreted personally for Nelson Mandela shortly after his release from prison in South Africa in 1990. He is a professional audiobook narrator (APA and PANA member) with a home studio. He has significant titles (Christopher Hitchens, KJ Charles, John Marco Allegro, Bob van Laerhoven, Jung, Clausewitz, Heidegger, Popper, Thomas Aquinas, among others) to his credit. In the 1980s, he spent four years traveling the world by motorbike, summiting Kilimanjaro, and crossing the South Atlantic under sail. Martyn's French is native speaker level. He also speaks German and Spanish. He has acted on stage and screen, produced and voiced content for current affairs radio, and tutored in media and presentation skills.

Editorial Reviews

Masterful and beautifully written. Required reading for anyone interested in how the Troubles ended and what the final answer to the Irish question might be.

Jonathan Powell

One of the most astute and informed modern commentators on British politics and its foreign policy. Stephens has written a profound, authoritative and readable account of the troubled relations between Britain and Ireland.

Daithí Ó Ceallaigh

"Astute insights into a seemingly endless problem."

Kirkus Reviews

An authoritative and insightful account of how the two countries have struggled to establish a neighborly coexistence is illuminated by the author's experience as a journalist covering Anglo-Irish relations since the 1980s.

Stephen Collins

Praise for These Divided Isles:

From the Publisher

A clear sighted and dispassionate view of Anglo-Irish relations is long overdue—now Philip Stephens has provided it. This book is essential reading for anyone who wants to know how politicians have divided these islands.

Adam Boulton

A most comprehensive, balanced, and hard-hitting history of the last hundred years of Anglo-Irish relations. It pulls no punches on those on all sides who were to blame for the terrible and often callous failures that led to a violent and divisive partition.

Richard Needham

This timely book, from one of Britain's most perceptive commentators, provides an illuminating entryway into this essential history.

Sathnam Sanghera

"This is a compelling account of how a country that once prided itself on its active internationalism now appears as curiously disengaged, drifting away from its natural allies. Philip Stephens tell the story with a journalist's eye for the interplay of personality and policy-making.

Lawrence Freedman

"A magnificent, exhilarating book, laying bare the contradictions, misunderstandings and delusions that led Britain first to build a bridge across the Channel and then bulldoze it.

Prospect

"With his profound knowledge of the politics of Westminster, Washington, and the European Union, Philip Stephens tells the increasingly depressing story of Britain's failure to adjust to the loss of empire and to the reality of life as a middle ranking country, with a distinguished culture and history. No one is likely to write this modern history of decline with more brio and comprehensive insight.

Chris Patten

"Having talked to many of the leading players over decades, Philip Stephens gives us a ringside seat at the drama of how Britain lost, found and lost again its post-imperial international role. Sad and fascinating.

Timothy Garton Ash

"Philip Stephens has produced that rare thing—an instant classic. Britain Alone is the codebook we need to unravel the six and a half decades between Suez and Brexit, and Stephens is a master of historical codebreaking.

Peter Hennessy

A compelling, informative and readable history book. It offers some much-needed substance into the overly emotional and often superficial debate about the ways the UK can use its still significant capabilities to define and protect its interests in the world.

The Financial Times Helene von Bismark

"Philip Stephens' history of British foreign policy since World War II will not be bettered for many years. Much more readable than most works of history, it is also more intellectually rigorous than a lot of journalism. The anecdotes are telling and the judgements judicious, while the reportage is often based on first-hand observation.” - Charles Grant, Director of the Centre for European Reform

"The work of a historian as well as of a great writer and journalist.

Catherine Colonna

Commanding. Rarely if ever, in the history of the British state since 1707, has one half of Britain's ruling elite committed an act of policy viewed with such absolute contempt by the other half; and rarely has that contempt been expressed with such elegance, such fluency, and such a devastating wealth of supporting detail.

Scotsman

"A tour de force. Philip Stephens combines an engaging narrative, packed with fascinating detail with a profound and thought provoking analysis of the UK's place in the world from Suez to the present day. A readable and authoritative account of Britain's international role.

Anand Menon

Praise for Philip Stephens’s Britain Alone:

"Admirably lucid and measured, as well as studded with sharp pen portraits of the key players, Britain Alone gives us the fullest long-run political and diplomatic narrative yet of Britain's fateful, tragi-comic road to Brexit.

David Kynaston