If you've ever read Michael Collins' "Carrying the Fire," you owe it to yourself to get a copy of "Liftoff."

In "Liftoff," Collins relates the history of NASA's spacecrafts and the people who created them. The best aspect of his story is that it is not a timeline of spacecraft A, spacecraft B, spacecraft C, etc. "Liftoff" is an appreciation of the clunky Mercury capsule, the complex and triumphant Apollo spacecrafts, the grace (or at least relative grace) of the space shuttle, and so many other NASA innovations.

Partnered alongside the machines are the early NASA pioneers who envisioned them. Collins lets you in on the aims behind their designs. He also writes about these men as professionals, some of them visionaries, and others just nuts-and-bolts engineers.

So "Liftoff" is a great read for what it is and what it is not. It is not a NASA history with the adventure, drama, and action of space flight (although that is often very exciting to read). Instead, it is a technical book for non-technical readers, a NASA history for non-space buffs, and a personal story about machines.

After reading Collins' "Carrying the Fire" and "Liftoff," I believe that no other author has ever written as well about NASA. Only Andrew Chaikin has come close with "A Man on the Moon." Collins transcends what an astronaut can say about space travel, and he does it with humor, an almost poetic fluidity, and the perspective of someone who was there.

Fantastic! Michael Collins really knows how to write! He turns non-fiction material into a real page turner. I learned a lot from this book. It is well organized and includes a U.S. manned spaceflight log at the end. This book not only provides information about NASA from Mercury to the shuttle but also includes information on military research with aircraft predating the space program and how NASA itself was formed. Collins' own expeirience as an astronaut makes the book even more exciting. The first chapter is a detailed firsthand account of the Apollo 11 flight, the first mission to land on the moon, upon which Collins was a crew member. Later in the book he writes a similar type of account about his earlier Gemini 10 flight which involved an EVA (spacewalk). The illustrations are also beautiful. James Dean does a good job capturing the essence of space exploration in his detailed sketches. If you know nothing about NASA and want to learn, it's time to read this book!!! -Roxana Safipour

I rarely look at a book for its pictures, but in "LIFTOFF" the illustrations are fabulous! I remember seeing this images reproduced in the exhibit "You Are Here, _Wondering_ Through the Solar System" at the Austin Children's Museum... by far the best part of that exhibit!

Michael Collins and the Making of the Irish State had its genesis in the Peace and Reconciliation conference held at University College Cork in 1997. Later, the essays were collected and edited into this volume.

The essays look at the various aspects of Michael Collins as historical figure, romantic figure, military leader, political leader and terrorist. For the most part, they are even handed attempts to place the man against the backdrop of turbulent times and strong personalities.

The essays do assume that the reader has some knowledge of Irish history and politics; that aside, they are still interesting to someone new to the field and valuable for the scholar of Irish history.

Though I had some difficulty tracking this title down, finding it was well worth my effort. This book contains articles by the editors, Mary Banotti (grandniece of Collins' and MEP), Joe Lee, Margot Gearty, Gearóid O'Sullivan, Dr. Andrew McCarthy, Eunan O'Halpin, Peter Young, Éamon Phoenix, John Regan, Deirdre McMahon, Diarmuid Ã" Giolláin, Tom Garvin, Martin Mansergh, and Ronan Fanning. To someone already familiar with Irish history, many of these names are recognizable and to the Irish history newcomer, expect to learn a lot. As one review noted, these articles do presume at the very least a rudimentary knowledge of Irish history. If you are looking to read your first book on the subject, I would suggest starting out with something less difficult. For the history buff with a die-hard interest in Michael Collins, this book provides intriguing, absorbing information. It includes Collins' experiences in Granard with the Kiernan family, Collins' relationships both romantic and platonic, Collins' role as Minister for Finance and Director of Intelligence, Collins' military skills, Collins' place in the Northern Question, the possibility that Collins died intestate, Collins' biographers, Collins and propaganda funerals, Collins and de Valera, etc., etc. The book also includes several b/w photos, two of which I hadn't seen before. For anyone conducting academic research on Collins or for anyone simply reading about his life for personal enrichment, I would highly recommend this book as an unbeatable addition to your library.

This compilation of articles on Ireland's legendary revolutionary hero is particularly interesting in that it offers assessments of him on many levels--the comrade, the suitor, the financial brain, the intelligence chief, the practical idealist, the hard man, the soft man, the visionary. All the aspects are fascinating and the individual essays are well written as well as very balanced, for the most part. The collection appears to be an attempt--generally successful--to put into perspective a man and a life that have been alternately obscured by deliberate attempts to keep his accomplishments in the shadows, over-idealized by admirers attempting to rectify the former, or simply distorted by being too closely linked to the wrenching times in which he lived. This is a book which helps the interested reader understand the real man and his critical importance to the creation of the Free State of Ireland, now the Republic.

This book is worth finding. Not a name you're going to hear thrown around a coffee house, but definately worth discovering and sharing. Collins short stories are rich, dynamic and interesting. One is handed a photograph of words in which the people of Ireland, and their culture, are placed in facinating situations. Not may know of this work, so be one of the few who do.

Michael Collins' stories are not for the faint of heart, nor for the simple of mind. They are emotionally complex without being stylistically opaque. He finds good compromises between writerly and readerly concerns, between brutality and deftness, between sensitivity and senselessness. A wonderful collection from a fine writer whose work should receive the attention here in the U.S. that it has abroad.

What a book..."The Book of life." Why it's a modern cartoon book of paleontology. Though its wonderful life-like illustrations and tree-of-life charts are delivered as scientific facts, they are simply graphic theories that illustrators doll up into hypothetical reality. If you like science and fiction, here is a book for you. The realistic pictures belie the text, which says: "We do not even know how to conceptualize, much less to draw the worldview that would place Homo sapiens into proper relationship with the history of life."

Its authors caveat is that "science can only operate as a work in progress without perfect knowledge, and we much therefore leave a great deal out from ignorance --- especially in a historical field like paleontology, where we must work with the strictly limited evidence of a very imperfect fossil record." It's that fossil record, that the book presumes is accurate in its layer-by-layer record through time, that requires scrutiny. The oldest fossils are found in the bottom layers and the youngest in the top layers of rock, but little or no evidence is presented to provide skeptical readers information they can decipher for themselves as to the accuracy of fossil dating by rock layers. Are we to believe, without exception, that the fossil record is progressive from bottom to top? What about fossilized trees that protrude through millions of years of time? They are conveniently omitted. Michael Benton of England's Bristol University, one of the book's contributors, says "All the periods in the geological time scale receive their names in recognition of obvious changes in the fossil record." Yet, to the contrary, Benton adds, "the history of Earth's crust has been far too violent to preserve much more than a random sample."

Its general editor, Stephen Jay Gould, is magnanimous in his promotion of a single theory of man's origins, from monkeys he and most other fossil hunters say.

There may be missing pieces to the paleontological puzzle, but the bone diggers cliam they have finally filled in the evolutional blanks and can conclusively attest to the idea that life evolved from simpler single-celled organisms into modern man. The book's most ardent opponents are taken head on by Gould: "The lack of fossil intermediates had often been cited by creationists as a supposedly prime example for their contention that intermediate forms not only haven't been found in the fossil record but can even be conceived." But Gould holds a trump card. He says: "a lovely series of intermediary steps have now been found in rocks.... in Pakistan. This elegant series, giving lie to the creationist claims, includes the almost perfectly intermediate Ambulocetus (literally, the walking whale), a form with substantial rear legs to complement the front legs already known from many fossil whales, and clearly well adapted both for swimming and for adequate, if limited, movement on land." Oddly, the book never shows a drawing of Ambulocetus, but does have an illustration of a skeleton of a 400-million year old fish with a small underside fin bone the authors claim "must have evolved" into legs in four-legged animals. Man's imagination is not found wanting here. Out of millions of fossils collected and stored in museums, is Ambulocetus the main piece of evidence for evolutionary theory?

Richard Benton says that Charles Darwin had hoped the fossil record would eventually confirm his theory of evolution, but "this has not happened," says Benton. Darwin hoped newly-discovered fossils would connect the dots into a clear evolutionary pattern. The book attempts to do that with its fictional drawings of apes evolving into pre-humans (hominids) and then modern man. Yet the book is not without contradictions. It says: "It remains uncertain whether chimpanzees are more closely related to modern humans or to the gorilla."

The horse is shown as evolving from a small, four-toed to a large one-toed animal over millions of years. There are different varieties of horses, yet there is no evidence that a horse ever evolved from another lower form of animal, nor that horses evolved into any other form of animal.

Another evolutionary puzzle that goes unexplained in the book is the pollination of flowers. How did bees and flowers arrive simultaneously in nature? What directed the appearance of one separate kingdom of life (insects) with that of another?

The book describes 6 1/2-foot millipedes and dragonflies with the wing span of a seagull, but gives no explanation for them. Life was unusual in the past and not all forms fit evolutionary patterns. Consider the popular supposition that life evolved from the sea onto land. That would make more advanced forms of intelligence land bearing. But the aquatic dolphins defy that model, since they are among the smartest mammals.

The book maintains an "out of Africa" scenario for the geographical origins of man, but recent fossil finds in Australia challenge that theory and even the book's authors admit that "a single new skull in an unexpected time or place could still rewrite the primate story." Consider Java man (Homo erectus), once considered the "missing link" and dated at 1.8 million years old. Modern dating methods now estimate Java man to be no more than 50,000 years of age, a fact that was omitted from this text.

Creativity, invention and language are brought out as unique human characteristics. Yet the true uniqueness of man is not emphasized. Humans biologically stand apart from animals in so many ways. Humans can be tickled whereas animals cannot. Humans shed emotional tears, animals do not. The book does not dare venture beyond structure and function, beyond cells and DNA, to ask the question posed by philosophers --- does man have a soul? The Bible speaks of a soul 533 times, this "book of life," not once.

Gould's temple is science. He calls the scientific method "that infallible guide to empirical truth." Science works by elimination. It can only work from experiment to experiment, eliminating what is not true. It can say what is probable, it can never say what is true. Gould appears to begrudge the shackles of science by stepping outside its boundaries in overstating what it can accomplish. Whereas creationists await the day they will stand in judgment before God, for the evolutionists Gould says "Someday, perhaps, we shall me our ancestors face to face." Imagine, standing there looking at a man-like monkey skeleton.

One cannot fault the flaws in this book. After all, it was written by highly evolved apes.

You would have expected more time and detail to the ermergence of the nervous system and the Cambrian Explosion. A more up-to-date section on human evolution (no mention of Ardipithecus Ramidus) but on the whole the book is a good synthesis of the state of the knowledge in this field.

This singular book gives a very nice popular overview of the state-of-the-art in paleontology, chronologically covering everything from the Archean to the evolution of man. It is a beautifully illustrated and well-written book, although the text is perhaps sometimes a bit too technical and dense for the paleontological novice.
And please don't buy some creationists' claims that this is science fiction. The contents of this book is based on material from thousands of scientific articles in peer-reviewed scientific journals such as "Nature" and "Science", representing the fruits of the hard labour of paleontologists from all over the world. And the fossil record, even if it is convincing in itself, is far from the only support for evolution. Independent evidence for evolution can also be found in biogeography, development, molecular analyses (gene DNA, junk DNA, mtDNA etc), anatomical analyses, and even field observations of new species evolving. This large amount of evidence is why evolution is considered an established and undisputable fact. Of course, if one rather than facts wants comic book fantasies such as humans coexisting with dinosaurs and evil scientists conspiring to hide the truth, then one should look for creationist books instead. Or comic books.

The Moonstone is a slow-paced detective novel written in the 19th century in London, England. The Moonstone was first obtained by Colonel Herncastle who bequeaths it to his niece Miss Rachel on her sixteenth birthday. She is thrilled with her gift and sets the gem in her bedside table that night. When she awakens the next morning, the moonstone is nowhere to be found. The loss of the moonstone is told by Mr. Betteredge, a servant in Miss Rachel's house. Mr. Betteredge offers an outside opinion, as he is not directly involved in the mystery, but sees all that goes on. The rest of the book is split up into different narratives from various characters of the book. Each character's narrative is able to give the reader more pieces to the puzzle. Wilkie Collins wrote this book so well that the characters stand on their own during their narratives. Their personalities surface and are not supported by one another. This was very helpful in keeping the characters straight due to the detail and character that Collins gave them. I really liked this part of the book because all the clues to the mystery weren't given to the reader on a silver platter. Every character in the book had a separate identity. They had more purpose than just happening to be involved in the mystery.
The Moonstone is also unpredictable. Collins will lead the reader to believe and act on other facts before turning the evidence completely around and ending up with a conclusion that throws the reader for a loop. I appreciated this because it kept me reading. I found out who stole the moonstone along with the characters. It was refreshing not to know the answer and having to wait for the other characters to figure it out. I also found the little subplots that were created during the story. They showed the interactions of the characters and helped to explain the personalities of the characters even more. The only problem that I found with The Moonstone is that Collins has a lot of patience. He is content to examine every detail before moving on with the next piece to the puzzle. He also encourages his characters to wait with the solving of the mystery. It is almost exasperating to be so close in solving the mystery that only one character must be interviewed. Almost always, the character will be indisposed or out-of-town. It was a little frustrating to have to wait for the characters to return and having to read about what they had for dinner in the meantime. On a positive note, reading The Moonstone was like watching a movie. However, instead of watching the characters eat, the reader reads about it. This still only adds to the detail of the book and makes you appreciate Collins work on making sure that every element of the story is attended to. All in all, The Moonstone was a great novel, and I would recommend it to anyone who likes a good puzzle to solve.

First off, I think I should let anyone reading this review know that I am a high school student. But I don't believe that this fact impacted the way that I felt about the book. I have always been a fan of mystery novels and this one was definately one of the best of its genre. The book follows a huge, yellow diamond stolen by a British officer from an Indian sultan's treasury. 50 years later, the officer leaves the gem to his neice, Rachel Verinder, upon his death. The gem is then stolen from Miss Verinder on the same night she receieves it. The story follows the search for the truth of the missing stone. But the best part about the novel is that it is told in first person narritive, by several individuals who played important roles in the story. Wilkie Collins does a masterful job at pulling off this writting technique by giving each of the narrators their own character, from which they portray the story as they perceived it to have happened. Each narrator provided deep insight into the other characters; some of whom are described from several different and sometimes intentionally conflicting perspectives. The trouble, for a reader, with trying to solve an average mystery novel is that you can be influenced by the narrator's views. Wilkie Collins allows the reader to see the events and characters through the eyes of different narrators, giving the reader many perspectives to look at and allowing the reader to decide for themselves what is really happening and who people really are. One of the complaints about Collins' novel is that he is at times long winded, but I found the story simply to be incredibly detailed, enjoyable, and beautifully written. Collins' also provides an accurate portrayal of the opinions of the Victorians during the imperialist age. Overall, I would reccomend this novel to anyone who enjoys a good mystery, especially one wiht a twist due to the unusual style of narration.

The Moonstone is a cleverly contrived tale of a stolen Indian dimond which becomes the dangerous inheritance of Rachel Vendier. When the incredible dimond is stolen, for the second time, the seemimly simple case becomes a masterpiece of mystery and suspense. The novel entangles us in every page. We become lost in the emotions of the 19th century characters. When the mystery begins to unfold, we delieghtedly press on, only to find that Collins has outwitted us again. Collins has an amazing talent for assuming a variety of narrative voices, which keep the reader envolved with the individual characters. Each new clue elicits thousands of questions, arousing in the reader, a desire to read on and on. The Moonstone is the most outstanding cassic detective mystery novel ever written.

I played the old West End Games version of the Star Wars RPG for 12 years, and have been looking forward to this new version for some time. I'm happy to report that, in most respects, WotC has really delivered.

The d20 rules (similar, but not identical to the 3rd Edition D&D rules) are elegant in their simplicity. I think that this will help the new game overcome one of the few shortcomings of the excellent WEG system -- combat (and skill resolution as a whole) could be extremely slow with experienced characters, as the players would have to roll and then count up huge handfuls of d6s.

There are not a large number of character classes available in the new system, especially compared to the plethora of templates available under WEG. However, the multiclassing rules are very simple, and can help re-create many of the old templates.

I only have two complaints about this otherwise excellent new game. First of all, the starship combat system is extremely simplistic and abstract -- a little too much so for my tastes. Secondly, while the book contains statistics for many aliens and equipment, there are a lot of staples that are still missing (where are banthas, A-wings, or TIE Interceptors?).

One final note -- there isn't a lot of help for true novice role-players in this rulebook. If you love Star Wars, but have never tried a role-playing game before, you might want to try the introductory "Star Wars Adventure Game" first.

I actually own both the original core rulebook and the revised core rulebook, and wow is there a heck of a difference. First of all get this book even if you are not going to be running a game of Star Wars yourself. This book has resource upon resource for the player to draw on, which will help save the Game Master time and energy and allow the GM to focus more on the game.

Improvements? Changes in the system! It's no longer a simple derivative of 3rd Edition D&D, it is growing in it's own direction. Also, there are prestige classes which were not there before.

There is so much in here of worth just for players, and for Game Masters, this update is a must. It has many things that will allow you to help the players understand the game, and gives ideas for campaigns, etc.

The current GM for our game is using this book, and he thinks it is great too.

Are there things left unexplained? Sure, it's just a general start into the roleplaying universe of Star Wars. There's other books for more specific things like time periods or ships/weapons or Jedi/Sith related questions.

And that is why it is a 5 star book for me. Because it covers the bases it needs to cover.

If you're a veteran of the original West End Games Star Wars RPG, then how much you like this book is going to vary widely. Its a better system overall, but the source material isn't quite as high quality.

First off, this is not D&D 3e in space. The mechanics are nearly identical, yes, but the game has a markedly different feel to it. Playing Star Wars with this system, you will not be constantly thinking "I'm surprised that there's no elves around here." Don't worry about it.

The book's presentation is excellent, for the most part (kudos to whoever designed the galaxy map on pages 208-209). The art is clean and crisp, and generally high quality. It consists of maybe 80% movie stills and 20% new art, all of which is quite well done. The book has the futuristic "prequel" look to it, but it's much better integrated than in the original core rulebook, with more space dedicated to text instead of graphics.

The mechanics are clear and simple, and if you don't like a given rule, it's extremely easy to fudge itaround to get the feel you're looking for. Combat, a hallmark of d20, is extremely well done and feels quick and exciting, with simple, yet verbose rules.

If you're into RPGs and like Star Wars at all, you won't go wrong buying this book. It includes both GM and player sections, allowing your group to jump right into the action. So pick this puppy up, and get ready for adventure in a galaxy far, far away.

T. Ryle Dwyer's joint biography on Michael Collins and Eamon De Valera is a striking comparison and contrast of the two most important figures in twentieth-century Irish history. Dwyer's examination of the influence of Collins and De Valera on the events leading to the recognition of the Irish Free State, and subsequently the Irish Republic, highlights the dramatically different leadership styles, personalities, and crisis strategies of the Big Fellow and Long Fellow.
This book is well researched, well written, and well organized. Many joint biographies fail in their efforts to flawlessly intertwine the lives of two radically different individuals. Dwyer moves back and forth from Collins to De Valera with skill and grace, and in a manner that demarcates their differences clearly to the reader. Dwyer's work also gives ample background of Irish and global events that led to the treaty with Britain, providing a context for readers unfamiliar with Irish history.
The chapters on the early childhood of both De Valera and Collins are particularly well researched and effectively presented. Dwyer draws lines between several influential childhood events and the leadership style and personality that both leaders assumed later in life. Additionally, Dwyer's examination of Collins' role in the partitioning of Northern Ireland is exceptional. Overall, this book serves as a definitive study of the two most prominent figures in modern Irish history.

An informative and interesting account of the lives and times of the two most famous leaders of the Irish fight for independence from Britain. While not as detailed or as exhaustively researched as other books on the two men, it is of particular interest because it presents them together and explores the contrasts between them which ultimately led to their split and the devastating civil war in Ireland, which was more tragic by far than the war against Britain. The theory of the book is that the difference in the background and upbringing of the two accounts for the eventual animosity between them--DeValera, the cold, reserved, patriotic and manipulative product of a dislocated and not very secure childhood, and Collins, the much-loved youngest child in a large, cohesive family, whose volatile, intelligent, charismatic personality created both enemies and almost fanatically loyal adherents. The contrasts are engrossing and illuminating, and the book is well worth reading to understand the dynamics behind the Irish War of Independence.

Picking this up by cahnce I was surprised by the details T. Ryle Dwyer went into. Such intimate looks into the personality's and the main hops, skips and jumps that went along with these two great men's lives. Highly enjoyable and hard to leave at home! Easy to read and sometimes fairly amusing.

Meda Ryan attempts to tackle a very difficult task: determining who shot Michael Collins on that ill-fated day in 1922. In the book's preface, Ryan shares her reasons for wanting to examine the topic and her research methods in compiling the book. In Part I of the introduction, Ryan provides a short biography of Collins's life from his birth to June 1922. In Part II, she covers the last two months of Collins's life and the marrow of the book begins. Ryan supplies several great pictures and several maps of Béal na mBláth. Her evidence consists of eye-witness accounts, letters, telephone conversations and newspaper clippings.

Ryan takes us on a rollercoaster of facts and emotions as the story progresses. The basic theories she tackles are: Collins was hit from behind by IRA members headed to Kerry, Collins was hit by a member of his own party by a close range bullet from the armoured car, Collins was hit by a ricocheted bullet, and Collins was hit by a bullet fired by an IRA member. After dissecting the response of the medical examiners, the embalmer, the men who supposedly buried the cap Collins was wearing on the day he was killed, and the testimony of Emmet Dalton, Collins's friend and comrade who was with him that day, Ryan does give a firm conclusion as to who the shooter was. She dispels the theories that Collins was shot by a bullet from a Mauser pistol and that Collins was killed by a ricocheted bullet. So who shot Michael Collins according to Ryan's studies? Read this engrossing book to find out!

After reading a number of books on Michael Collins I found this book to be one of the most interesting on the shelves. The author gives a brief background of Collins life, what influenced his views and why he signed the Treaty. As the title suggests this book concentrates mainly on the last days of Michael Collin's life. There is an in-depth look at how he was killed and who fired the fatal shot. Interviews included are with those who took part in the Beal na mBlath ambush. I would highly recommed this book, even to anyone who has a slight interest in Michael Collins.

This book is a quick read that provides good detail of the last days of MIchael Collins' life and the months leading up to his assassination. If you are interested in what he did before he was shot and a theory of his death then you should read this book. The book focuses on the assassination of Collins and the politics surrounding it. It gives great detail of the final day and the attack itself so if that interests you it would be a good book.

While the covers to MARTYR and FIRE ON HIGH provided some idea as to what the non-TV-appearance characters looked like, this expanded on their looks even further--this is now being considered the definitive source on character looks--and also provided a look at Excalibur's interiors (equal parts Enterprise-D, Enterprise-E, and Voyager), the Danteri, the Redeemers, Katerina Mueller, Mick Gold, and "Hash" Takahashi; even Shelby and Lefler look like their original actresses Elizabeth Dennehy and Ashley Judd. Kebron's ultra-dry wit remains in full force with instances like "Bartender? Another one if you're not too busy," when the ship is performing radical manuevers and everyone else is being flung across the compartment. Shelby and Calhoun's pre-Excalibur relationship is explored a little as well. There's even a visit from a VOYAGER character, and a subtle reference to the BABYLON 5 spinoff CRUSADE.

Peter David's crew of the USS Excalibur, commanded by the alien Captain Mackenzie Calhoun, has been extremely popular in the original Pocket Books series. Now this latest addition to the Star Trek phenomenon moves into comic books.

"Double Time" is an often hilarious, often tragic, romp through time. It dovetails into the ongoing soap opera style of the novels and gives most of Calhoun's eccentric Starfleet crew a chance to shine. Peter David collaborated with the illustrators on the "look" of his characters in this comic, and for the most part, the art is exception. Watch out for the cameo of Ensign Janos, the resident Mugato security officer.

Of the several biographies I have read of the life of Michael Collins, this one does not stand up. Frought with inaccuracies as to dates, as well as circumstances, O'Connor replaces research with recollection and opinion. There are several other great biographies of this most important Irish figure. Avoid this one.

When I got the book I thought it would be more on Michael Collins . Despite this I thought it was a good book that help put into to prespective the events and people around him.

O'Connor's title suggests that this book is strictly a biography of Michael Collins focused on the years 1912 through 1922. In actuality, it covers a wide range of people and events and I cannot recommend it strictly as a Collins biography. However, as a history book that happens to have an emphasis on Collins, particularly in the latter part, I can recommend it. O'Connor has relied on materials from the library of General Richard Mulcahy (the IRA's chief of staff in Collins' time) and on interviews with Eamon de Valera, et al. For those reasons alone, I believe it is worth at least a cursory glance. Because of O'Connor's interest in and work for the Abbey Theatre, this book does emphasize literature and the arts in terms of how they fueled the independence movement. For someone interested in humanities as well as history, this would be one of O'Connor's advantages. This selection is divided only into numbered chapters rather than parts and that can be a bit irritating at times, especially because this is not a traditional biography. Chapter One actually begins by discussing Charles Stewart Parnell and the untimely end of his career. From there, the reader is taken quickly through the Irish political climate from the late 1800s to 1912. It is not until the last third of the book that the audience learns of specific ways Collins kept the republican struggle afloat in tough times. Therefore, this book's usefulness can only be determined by what you intend to use it for. If you are trying to accumulate materials for a general study of modern Irish history, this book is worth owning. If you are looking for a typical Collins biography, this wouldn't be the best starting point.