Reviews

The concept of command, as a way to decide on strategies to achieve objectives, or as an assertion of authority, has been essential to military action and leadership. Sir Lawrence Freedman pursues that proposition and shows how it is also deeply political.

The initial thought on seeing this book for the first time might be for many readers to wonder why there should be another on the same person and the religious and political topics of late-Renaissance Scotland. The author herself suggests the point in her list of further reading with the comment tha

When President Higgins last month made an unprecedented political intervention in defence of Irish neutrality, Conor Gallagher must have been jumping for joy. The Irish Times correspondent's new book – Is Ireland Neutral? The Many Myths of Irish Neutrality – could not have been better ti

From 1678, a handful of perjurers claimed that the Catholics of England planned to assassinate the king. As a result of their disgraceful work between November 1678 and July 1681, at least 17 Catholics, lay and clergy, died as traitors on the scaffold, and not in the easiest of circumstances. Many o

The brutal deaths of Lord Frederick Cavendish and Thomas Burke, Chief Secretary and Permanent Under-Secretary for Ireland respectively, took place on Saturday 6 May, 1882 in Phoenix Park, Dublin. Both were strolling together after a busy time following their recent appointments. The murders were car

The criminal trial of Marshal Philippe Pétain in Paris in 1945 was that of the highest ranking military officer accused of treason, in having betrayed his country by collaboration with the enemy. The contrast in personal fortunes was extreme: Pétain had, as supreme commander of French

There is no shortage of books about some politicians but Winston Churchill seems to be in a separate category from the others. When Churchill: Walking With Destiny (Allen Lane, 2018) by Andrew Roberts (now Lord Roberts of Belgravia) was published that biography, at 1,105 pages, was said to be the 1,

A psychonaut, according to a dictionary, is someone who explores altered states of consciousness, especially through hallucinatory drugs. The term apparently originates from 1970 when one author described the psychedelic, drug-induced experiences with his friend. Mike Jay is a historian of

The many, and systematically horrible, events in the southern states of America over many years in the middle of the last century are described in Margaret Burnham’s new book By Hands Now Known: Jim Crow’s Legal Executioners. The phrase ‘Jim Crow’ is an American shorthand for

Said to be a 'living instrument', the European Convention on Human Rights was conceived in the throes of reconciliatory passion in May 1948 at the Congress of Europe in The Hague. It was brought to term by more than a hundred parliamentarians from across the region, including the Edinburgh-born Cons

In Solicitors to Scotland, author Ewan McCall has succeeded in producing that rarest of publishing phenomena — a company history that is both interesting and readable. Anderson Strathern, and the dozen or so earlier incarnations that contributed to its development, is the firm in question. The

Christopher Stanley, litigation consultant at Belfast-based KRW LAW LLP, reviews a new textbook on public law. As an English lawyer practising in Ireland – north and south – on a range of issues including the legacy of the conflict and the mother and baby homes scandal, to ask to review

Terra Firma's new call Jon Kiddie reviews a much needed day-to-day practical book on judicial review. Published at the very end of 2019, this is an excellent book, and worthy of recommendation to a broad range of readers: law students, solicitors, solicitor advocates, and counsel — whether the

SLN's editor reviews Trials of the State: Law and the Decline of Politics by Jonathan Sumption. Though apt to be caricatured as some sort of anti-judge in the post-prorogation world, iconoclast jurist Jonathan Sumption—in this, his first popular legal book—echoes Montesquieu wh

Irish barrister Andrew McKeown critically examines the proposals put forward by legal tech expert Professor Richard Susskind in his latest book. Online Courts and the Future of Justice is a fascinating read for lawyers and non-lawyers alike. It is clear that Professor Susskind is sincerely