This is a truly fascinating work about Ireland. Told in an enjoyable way it was fun to read. If you are even slightly interested in Ireland, it's past or present then you want this book in you collection.

James Charles Roy describes himself as a freelance historian. Not much money to be made there, but after reading his entertaining account of leading a tour of American septugenarians into the wilds of ancient Ireland, I think the world needs more historians like him. Roy takes us into the byways and back roads of Ireland introducing us to a part of this beautiful island that most of us never see. His tales and experiences are told with a wry and self-deprecating humor which makes this a thoroughly enjoyable and quick read.

Just when you thought the Irish travel memoir had all but run its course, along comes James Charles Roy's The Back of Beyond, a thoughtful and thoroughly informative investigation of the Ireland of yesterday and today.

Subtitled "A Search for the Soul of Ireland," Roy provides an astute and unvarnished take on the Celtic Tiger that is today's Ireland, warts and all. What distinguishes this book from others in this chock-a-block genre, is Roy's commitment to getting off the Board Failte tourist trail, to seek-out and offer insights to some of Ireland's relatively obscure yet fascinating historic sites. The list includes Scattery Island, Athassel Priory, Knockgraffon Motte, and perhaps most noteworthy, Bully's Acre which, in the author's words, is one of "Dublin's oldest (and seediest) graveyards." Within the site, Roy locates the final resting place of British soldiers who fell victim to the Easter Rising of 1916. Were he a relative of one of these fallen soldiers, Roy writes, "I would be quite unhappy with this unkempt, miserable, overgrown lot of weeds that cover these bones of men who died so violently, it would appear, for nothing."

Unlike other noted travelers, like Rick Steves or Michael Palin, Roy doesn't exhibit the enthusiasm or generosity of spirit toward his fellow travelers. This is evidenced in the bulk of The Back of Beyond as Roy leads a small tour group from Cashel to the Aran Islands, Yeats Country to Dublin City. Roy often carps about his charges ("...my group is incapable of making any independent choices..."), those around him (labeling as "pompous" a tour guide at Dublin's Saint Patrick's Cathedral for working herself up into "a fever pitch" about Jonathan Swift), or simply the state of affairs at such popular tourist sites as Bunratty Castle. And yet, Roy's cantankerous style can at times seem refreshingly candid and not at all in sync with Board Failte. "Up with People goes to Ireland" this is not.

In the end, the author, now separated from his tour group and the throngs of tea towel purchasers that frequent Ireland's tourist trail, visits Ardoilean, a little known island off the Connemara coast. It is here that he finds an Ireland that is all but gone. Considering the island's isolation and the "blind faith" of the monks who once inhabited the place, Roy writes, "I may certainly claim an interest in the place, may congratulate myself on having the resolution to come, as many fainthearted people would not...but that doesn't mean I belong." It is here that an often crotchety Roy looks inward, turns self-critical, and makes The Back of Beyond all the more memorable.

A most hauntingly, beautiful history of old, old Ireland. My people came from area of Moyode Castle. Made me one with them. Perfectly researched. Truly knows Ireland and its people. Am on my second read of it. Would love to have him as a tour guide.

Notwithstanding its ominous title, this book is a reasonably conventional professional autobiography of a career diplomat. Author Richard Butler served as executive chairman of the United Nations Special Commission ("UNSCOM") charged with disarming Iraq from 1997 until 1999. Prior to that, he was Australia's ambassador to the United Nations and Thailand. Most of the book is devoted to disarmament issues, especially efforts to enforce U.N. Security Council resolutions requiring Iraq to destroy its weapons of mass destruction and to forbear rebuilding them and the subsequent decision to abandon those efforts. These issues must concern anyone interested in global security because, in Butler's view, the post-Cold War "new world order" may be every bit as dangerous as the frostiest years of the United States-Soviet Union confrontation.

Butler repeatedly demonstrates that he took a narrow, fundamental legalistic approach to his duties. He insists that the Security Council's decisions are binding on all of its members and that the Security Council has the ability "to enforce its decisions by military force, if needed." According to Butler, Security Council Resolution 687, which codified the terms of the cease-fire of the Persian Gulf War required Iraq to destroy all of its weapons of mass destruction - nuclear, chemical, biological, and missiles. Resolution 687 also set up the UN Special Commission - UNSCOM - as an organ of the Security Council to conduct the actual disarmament work, and the Security Council made completion of the disarmament work a prerequisite to the lifting of the economic sanctions imposed on Iraq in 1990. Butler clearly believes that Iraq never intended to cooperate with UNSCOM. As a pretext for reusing to cooperate, Iraq systematically blocked UNSCOM inspections, and this sparked a crisis that continued for 18 months. While Butler and UNSCOM were involved in an increasingly-bitter dispute with Iraq, Secretary-General Kofi Annan visited Iraq in February 1998 and proclaimed that Saddam Hussein was a man "I can do business with." In early August 1998, Iraq notified the Security Council that it had "decided to suspend UNSCOM's disarmament work." This led to a serious division in the Security Council, with the United States and the United Kingdom pitted against Russia, China, and France, which sought to end the disarmament work and discontinue the economic sanctions. UNSCOM was eventually disbanded and replaced by a body more sensitive to Iraq. Butler's outlook on the future is pessimistic. Butler asks: "Is Iraq as dangerous as it was a decade ago? And he answers: Elementally yes."

Although it is a cliché, I believe that this book is an extended exercise in preaching to the choir. Readers concerned with international-security issues already know and probably will agree with Butler that the UNSCOM period revealed "the real shape of the post-Cold War world," and they will share his criticisms of Russia, France, and China for having "clearly defined, separate interests in addition to their obviously shared concerns about a unipolar world." Much of this book is a detailed, sometimes tedious, narrative of Butler's two-year tenure at UNSCOM. After a while, it is mind-numbing, but, to the extent that Butler sought to make a historical record, he succeeds. This is an important book which ultimately asks: Can anyone have confidence in the United Nations if it allows cynical self-interest and endless palaver to prevail over principle and action?

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Book Review: Snatching Defeat from the Jaws of Victory by David Isenberg Thursday, May 18, 2000

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There is no way to say this delicately so I may just as well come right out and say it. This is a painful book to read. Why? Is it badly written? No, it is both informative and engaging. Does it deal with an unimportant topic? On the contrary, it deals with a critically important issue: the effort to stop the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, nuclear, biological and chemical weapons. Why then the pain?

This book is essentially the story of a failure, one that has consequences for the entire world. Specifically, it is the telling of the undermining and destruction of UNSCOM by Saddam Hussein. The West set up UNSCOM, short for the United Nations Special Commission, in the aftermath of the 1991 Persian Gulf War to disarm Iraq of its weapons of mass destruction.

Rolf Ekeus, a Swedish diplomat, headed UNSCOM for its first six years. In 1997, after Ekeus left to become Swedish ambassador to Washington, Richard Butler took over as executive director. Butler was an experienced Australian diplomat who had previously worked on many other disarmament issues. This book is the story of the final two years of struggle with Iraq in accordance with the original U.N. Security Council Resolution 687 of 1991. This struggle more or less ended -- unsatisfactorily -- when the United States and Britain bombed Iraq in Operation Desert Fox in December 1998, an event that marked the end of UNSCOM inspections in Iraq.

Caught cheating

Bear in mind that the various global arms-control regimes are based on the presumption that if those being inspected are found breaking the rules, some sort of enforcement will take place -- usually through the U.N. system and specifically thorough the Security Council. When enforcement fails, as happened in Iraq's case, the consequences are critical. As Butler notes: "Saddam's cheating has been detected, but it has not been stopped. Nations that could take action have chosen not to. The implications of this for the maintenance of the strictures against weapons of mass destruction, built so painstakingly over almost half a century, are dire. If Saddam finally gets away with it, the whole structure could well collapse."

Butler's is a story of many disappointments. He faced lack of political will and crass appeasement on the part of member nations of the U.N. Security Council. Constant obfuscation and deception by Iraq are the main themes, highlighted by vignettes of pettiness on the part of U.N. bureaucrats, such as the advisers to U..N Secretary-General Kofi Anan, and brazen lying by such Iraqi functionaries as Deputy Prime Minister Tariq Aziz. Butler had a reputation as a plain-spoken man. It is a reputation that is deserved. It is refreshing to see a diplomat use words like "outrageous," "appalling," "word witchcraft," "blackest lie," "phony" and "facile."

Back to Iraq?

In the first two chapters, Butler briefly describes his childhood and later working for the Australian Foreign Affairs department and the work he did prior to taking on his position as head of UNSCOM. But the remaining chapters constitute the core of the book.

Much of the book details the two wars that UNSCOM waged. Sadly, it lost both. The first and the better known is the daily war of attrition it fought with Iraq, which used ceaseless tactics of cheat, retreat and cheat in order to thwart UNSCOM. As Butler explains, Saddam Hussein did not believe he lost the Gulf War. Though Saddam was driven from Kuwait, he viewed the Dessert Storm coalition's real aim as to remove him from power or turn Iraq into a vassal state. Thus, for Iraq the battle with UNSCOM was simply the last battle of the Gulf War. And for Iraq to "cement its "victory" in that war they had to defeat both UNSCOM in general and Richard Butler personally. In fact, Iraq paid Butler an ironic compliment when it demanded his removal as item 9 of a list of demands presented to the Security Council in November 1998 in its attempt to forestall the Clinton bombing.

The other war UNSCOM fought with the U.N. to both preserve its independence and to get the Security Council to support its documentation of Iraq's continuing refusal to live up to its pledge to allow UNSCOM inspectors to carry out their work.

One of the more intriguing sections of the book deals with the allegation by Scott Ritter, former UNSCOM weapons inspector who resigned in 1998, that Butler had taken direction from the U.S. government and that UNSCOM had allowed itself to be a conduit for U.S. intelligence collection in Iraq. Ritter's view was detailed in his book Endgame published last year. We may never know the exact truth of the matter, but Butler musters a good case that his charges are false.

As Butler makes clear in his conclusions, we cannot expect UNSCOM's successor organization, UNMOVIC (United Nations Monitoring Verification and Inspection Commission), created in December 1999, to accomplish anything worthwhile. To name just two flaws, unlike UNSCOM it will be under the direction of the U.N. secretary-general; its staff will be U.N. civil servants instead of technical experts.

The conclusion that Butler leaves us with is both dismaying, and even worse, true. "When a determined criminal flouts international law under cover of the principle of state sovereignty, the world system, as currently constituted, appears able or unwilling to stop him," he writes.

In short, we should be afraid, very afraid...

This book is exceptional on so many levels I scarcely know where to begin. Richard Butler former Executive Chairman of UNSCOM is very definitely a man of deep integrity driven by an equally deep concern for the issue of arms control not solely in Iraq but throughout the world. This book is his story and how during the course of two years he battled to achieve the complete dismantling of Iraq's stockpile of weapons chemical biological and nuclear.

He describes in detail the stand-offs between himself and the Iraqi authorities and how ultimately the united nations through weakness and division have allowed Saddam Hussein to hold onto much of his deadly arsenal. He charts the use of these weapons by Iraq in its war with Iran as well as the use of gases on ethnic minorities inside the country itself.

The reader gets an incredible look at the UN Security Council attempting to apply a, geo-political rules as usual approach, to the problem of Iraq's non-compliance with UN resolutions. The role of the Russian diplomats along with the French and Chinese come in for close scrutiny. If Butlers understanding of Israel's defence posture during the gulf war is accurate then the reader can take it that if Saddam were to use a chemical weapon or worse against a city like Tel Aviv then almost certainly and without consultation Israel would respond with tactical nuclear weapons against Iraq. During the gulf war Israeli Jets sat fuelled and ready to fly against targets in Iraq following the deployment of some 39 Scud missiles fired at Israel during the conflict. This analysis and so much more is contained in this sober but authentic look at how dangerous the world has become. Worst of all is the ongoing capitulation by the United Nations in terms of forcing Iraqi compliance with its own resolutions.

From start to finish the book is a huge disappointment. For a region like Prussia, that was changing it's borders at least twice in a century the author is providing only one map from 1939, and even that is full of mistakes - rivers that don't exist, Kulm in East Prussia instead of in Poland, major cities misnamed. For the very unique and controversial subject of the prussian history the author chose the long discarded even by German historians, 19th century 'Borussian Myth' - drawing a straight line from the Teutonic Knights' rulership, through the Hohenzollern rule to the unification of Germany. All the elements of Polish history of the land are carefully omitted. Author interviews members of German nobility, aristocracy and German historians. When it comes to the Polish side he talks to car dealers, street drunks and other incompetent sources to show polish ignorance and lack of deep insight. Entire two chapters are devoted to an interview with a Jewish concentration camp survivor and an anti-Polish fanatic. This part is completely irrelevant to the subject of the book (Prussia), it just allows to show Poles in the worst possible light and portray them as primitive, blood thirsty, genetically anti-semitic beasts, responsible for entire Jewish holocaust in WW2. 'Germans were killing Jews only when they were ordered to, but Poles killed Jews whenever they had an opportunity, just for plain joy and pleasure, to satisfy their animal instincts' - that's basically the message contained in the book. There is no mention in the book about the 300 year history of Royal Prussia - a Polish province from 1454. The consistently pro-Polish loyalty of the people inhabiting the Prussian Provinces, even through the difficult war times, never appears in the book. The 15, 16 and 17th century symbol of Prussia - the Prussian Liberty and Privileges, provided by the King of Poland, and brutally liquidated during the Partitions of Poland - all of it was not worth discussion in a book supposedly devoted to 'travels through history of Prussia'. This might be a great book for a nostalgic Germans of East Prussian descent, but never to somebody, who would like to learn something about a twisted, complex and controversial history of Prussia. However, the exceptional writing skills and author's ability to capture reader's emotions will make this book very hard to put down.

I agree that many of the passages in this book are extremely romantic when it comes to describing Prussian history, but in my opinion the writing itself is great.

And although Roy may be slanted in his opinions when discussing Eastern European politics and history, or when describing the Wehrmacht or Teutonic Knights, he tempers this romanticism with tales of Polish Jewry and the atrocities committed against them in East Prussia and its environs.

I feel the biggest fault of the author's thinking (not the book), is the strong feeling of class that he demonstrates. It seemed to me that if a person wasn't a member of the Prussian aristocracy or a descendant, then they counted less.

Despite these points I thought the book was extremely well written and very interesting. When considering accuracy, though, the reader must read with an open mind and look at where the author is coming from.

As for inaccuracies with titles, such as The Great Elector being called "King Of Prussia" instead of "King In Prussia", there is a whole passage devoted to the explanation of both titles, as well as a geneological chart, so I don't know what the last reviewer was referring to.

If you are a descendant of people from that part of Europe, (as I am) this book will be a fascinating read. Just read it with an open mind.

I just wanted to personally thank James Roy for writing such a totally compelling account of Prussian history, with the inclusion of personal stories of the human tragedies endured as Prussia ceased to exist after 1945. My mother and grandparents were among those expelled by Russia and Poland. Asside from their personal accounts of these events, this is one of the only English publications I've seen which discusses the human drama in the German east at the end of the war (asside from some occasional token mention in a History Channel documentary).

Yes, parts of the history are portrayed as "romantic", esp. the Teutonic Knights, the landed aristocracy (Junkers), Frederick the Great et.al. , but so what ---- show me a history that doesn't describe the war mongering Napoleon in a similar light. The book is well tempered with the author's experience traveling through now Polish and Russian Prussia, describing the decay and ignorance of the local population with respect to relevance of historic sights (the use of the Hindenburg family cemetary as a garbage dump, with the former estate a collective farm is a case-in-point --> the locals claimed never to have heard of Hindenburg -----> the leveling of historic Koenigsberg and removal of 800 years of German history from East Prussia - including bulldozing cemetaries - is another). Both proud and disgracful history (witness Stutthof concentration camp) - its all here both inspiring and painful. And someone finally wrote it. Should be required reading in any Modern European history course - and would make a wonderful History Channel documentary.

I fail to see why the author bothered with his project- be it the "castle" or the book- given his low regard for the people and the place in general. I'd spent a fair amount of time in the area while growing up, and can tell you that the area has a charm that was utterly lost on the author. Don't waste your money, there are a myriad of books vastly superior to this one to be had. Just pick one at random and you'd have a better than even chance of it.

I appreciate James Roy's style of writing in which the past is so cleanly entwined with the present. This book takes the reader on a short journey through Ireland's tumultuous history and brings it all to life in the lives and characters of the real people of Galway. I was looking for a book that would not gloss over Ireland like a tourist guide and I found one in The Fields of Athenry. I am looking forward to reading Mr. Roy's other works! Now if I could just come up with enough money to buy me a castle... :-)

Mr. Roy's work is really two books in one -- a history of Ireland and its relationship with its Englsih invaders, and the personal story of how he bought a castle and restored it. Mr. Roy weaves the two stories together in alternating chapters, and does so with great skill.

The Irish history is sound, concise, and informative -- Mr. Roy explains how the Norman invaders became co-opted by their Irish subjects and how running through the whole complicated skein of Irish history is the story of the great, but quarrelsome Irish families -- The O'Connors, O'Briens, Burkes, and Fitzgeralds. This focus provides a great deal of clarity to understanding the history of the Island.

The story of Moyode Castle (Roy's personal story)is also fascinating, especially in detailing how the Irish accept this "foreigner" among them and how Mr. Roy comes to know and appreciate the local Irish culture. The book has many amusing tales of his encounters, although it is a little wistful, because he realizes that the Ireland he celebrates is gradually being lost to history.

Well worth reading, particularly if you are looking to travel in rural Ireland, or ever hoped to buy a castle.