THIS book is more than a chronicle of events, it is an account of two sides of a political and philosophical argument. Which is the best way to make peace? Should you seek to persuade the paramilitaries to stop their shooting and bombing, and hope that the shy flower of reconciliation will bloom in the silence? Or should you try to broker a deal between the big mainstream parties, leaving those on the fringes to join up or be locked up?
Both approaches have been tried at this stage and neither has succeeded, yet the argument goes on. The main focus of concentration here is the long, labyrinthine and largely clandestine effort to bring Sinn Fein in from the cold by persuading them and their paramilitary colleagues that politics was the better way.
At times it reads like a Le Carre thriller. McKittrick is a seasoned analyst of the Northern scene, Mallic a news sleuth par excellence, but even they confess themselves "frankly astonished by the unexpected complexity of the process described here, in particular the hidden labyrinth of secret contacts that lay beneath it".
Some of the book's contents have already made headlines, e.g., the account of Fianna Fail's early contacts with Sinn Fein; the private correspondence between John Major and Albert Reynolds; Peter Brooke's confirmation of British contacts with the IRA while Margaret Thatcher was still in Downing Street.
But The Fight for Peace is also a very valuable analysis, of the philosophical and political convergence between Sinn Fein and the SDLP as the Hume Adams dialogue progressed. The issue of consent, that elusive concept which lies at the heart of the peace process, has never been better explained than in this book.
The authors interviewed far and wide but to their keen regret they were refused by Father Alec Reid, the most blessed of all the peacemakers, who never lost hope, even in the darkest hours, that the killing could be brought to an end.
But they spent many hours with other key players", notably Albert, Reynolds, who provided them with almost a blow by blow account of his efforts to broker the IRA ceasefire. Like most people, the authors appear puzzled at the contrast between Reynolds the Surefooted, who walked the high wire to peace without a safety net, and Reynolds the Self Destructive, who led not one but two coalition governments to their doom. Olivia O'Leary was the first to remark that the willingness to take risks and cut corners which made Reynolds a great peacemaker also brought about his downfall as Taoiseach.
It may come as a surprise to some readers that Peter Brooke, former Northern Ireland Secretary, was as an early hero of the peace process. He made the right noises at the right time, admitting that the defeat of the IRA was difficult to envisage and promising to be "imaginative and flexible it, the Provos called off their campaign.
Alas! Peter Brooke turned out to be even more efficiently self destructive than Albert Reynolds. He sang his way out of a job when he launched into "My Darling Clementine" on The Late Late Show the night after the massacre of eight Protestant workmen at Teebane.
His successor, Sir Patrick Mayhew, does not come well out of these pages. One source reports that any time "Sir P" hears the name of Gerry Adams, "he bridles, he bristles, he looks down his nose, his lip curls". His reaction to this book will probably be the same.
The authors accept John Major's personal commitment to peace but add that he has never shown a full grasp of republican psychology. "While he had established working relationships with constitutional nationalists such as Albert Reynolds, he had never spent an evening with an Irish republican. During the 17 months of the ceasefire he never so far as is known, talked to any member of Sinn Fein.
This lack of understanding verging on overnight obtuseness was not confined to individual British government leaders: it permeated, the system. The vaunted intelligence services appear to haven failed dismally to alert their masters to the beginning of the IRA ceasefire, never mind its end.
The British Government's mishandling of the opportunity presented by the ceasefire is well chronicled: the early stalling over the word "permanent"; the release of Lee Clegg; the fetishisation of "Washington Three". It's all there, like an old nightmare revisited.
Equally nightmarish is the way political progress keeps getting wiped out by yet another atrocity. The authors challenge the IRA's belief that the massive Bishopsgate bomb forced Britain's hand politically. They write: "The time table clearly shows, however, that the British government, far from being galvanised by the bombing, effectively closed down any serious dialogue with the republicans shortly afterwards."
The political naivete of the republicans does not go unrecorded, either. There was the unwarranted belief that dropping abstentionism would give Sinn Fein up to five seats at Leinster House. Later, there was the shortsighted assumption that the Fianna Fail Labour coalition was "the strongest government in 25 years or more". Sinn Fein has a fair bit to learn about politics on this side of the Border.
Indeed, the book itself is weakest in its analysis of the South. It overestimates the influence of Dublin's resident "junta" of anti nationalist newspaper columnists. There are somewhat simplistic descriptions of Garret FitzGerald's and Charles Haughey's approaches to the "national question", as well as an over eager acceptance of the notion that President Robinson's election ushered in a post nationalist Ireland.
Those misgivings apart, The Fight for Peace is a fine book a worthy contribution to our knowledge and understanding of the Northern problem. No serious student of, the conflict should be without it.