This book comes highly recommended - admittedly it is generated by the publishers. Blackstaff commissioned a book which would be "a clear, concise, authoritative history" of the Troubles. Their choice of authors was inspired. David McKittrick needs no introduction. Anyone researching the Northern Ireland conflict derives a huge amount of knowledge and insight from his despatches from London, Washington and Belfast over the past quarter century. Justly, he received the Orwell prize for Journalism in the past year. His co-author is not so well known, but that does not diminish his contribution. This was an authoritorial marriage made in some publishing heaven.
McKittrick brings his vast journalistic expertise and insider knowledge of the Northern Ireland system; McVea the perspective of the historian. The result is a rich and seamless web. But it is more. It is a work of compassion enlightened by their collaboration on Lost Lives, a compendium of each and every Troubles death since 1969, a book that personalises the anomic anonymity of political violence and, hence, could have the capacity to be a force for reconciliation in the years ahead.
It may seem condescending to describe this book as a primer: after all, it is essentially a chronology of events from 1963 to 2000 with a valuable introductory chapter on the period from partition, 77 pages of chronology and five useful tables. What I mean to convey is that Making Sense . . . will be used by those who need a crash course on the conflict as well as those of us sated on the literature. There is too much of the latter. We are losing the ability to stand back and view the past 30 years dispassionately. McKittrick and McVea enable us to do so through a combination of deft pen portraits, a happy mix of the official and unofficial record - their comment that at Sunningdale the Unionists sent out for Polo mints while some other parties disposed of their drinks cabinet says a good deal about the cultural clash ensuing - a passion to inform, and an ability to unlock complex material, whether it be the introduction of direct rule, republican evolution, or the constitutional and institutional jigsaw of the 1998 Agreement. In short, it is strong on chronology, clarity and judicious opinion.
That is not to say that it is perfect. In any broad-brush overview, mistakes are inevitable: the leader of the Nationalist Party, Eddie McAteer, was not a solicitor, and Paddy Devlin, unlike Gerry Fitt, was expelled by the SDLP. But these are rare exceptions. On a broader scale, questions may be raised about the structure of the book. The authors cite the trench warfare model of successive Unionist governments. To some extent they have invoked the same model in their saturation of deaths and injuries. It is a human and understandable response, and it is inevitably Northern Ireland-centred, but it is produced at the expense of nuance. Combined with the chronological approach it sometimes sacrifices what Enoch Powell used to call "preplay".
To give one example: McKittrick and McVea give proper prominence to the significance of the 1985 Anglo-Irish Agreement, but not enough credit to the role of American interventions in securing the Agreement. The groundbreaking Carter statement of 1977 is mentioned in the chronology but not in the text; and Ronald Reagan's influence on Margaret Thatcher - a political romance as great as that of Antony and Cleopatra - is ignored.
That is not meant to detract from what is a comprehensive, considered and compassionate survey. What Making Sense . . . does is to draw a line on the map. It reminds us, painfully, how we have arrived at the uplands. It invokes us to study the route we have followed and forewarns us that there may be landmines ahead. But it gives us the confidence to draw a new map with a much clearer sense of the political terrain.
Paul Arthur is Course Director of the MA in Peace and Conflict Studies at the University of Ulster. His book, Special Relationships: Britain, Ireland and the Northern Ireland Problem will be launched shortly