The Squad is an account of the intelligence war waged principally in Dublin, by Michael Collins and the IRA from January 1919 to the Truce in 1921. It is based on a series of interviews given by participants to the Irish Bureau of Military History on the proviso, for many, that they would only be released after the interviewee’s death.

The author does not spend much time contextualising the violence in the politics of the time clearly having decided that, as there are many other books which provide such context, he has little additional to offer. This means that one is pitched almost straight away into the minuatae of intelligence operations with a bewildering array of characters.

However patience with this approach pays dividends: the book conveys the mammoth scale of the intelligence operation Collins undertook and hence the centrality of this in undermining Britain’s capacity to hold Ireland. The book also provides insight into how the ruthlessness and secrecy of the operations led to the moral erosion of some of the Squad members whose subsequent military and democratic conduct was far short of the ideals initially outlined by Collins for them.

Collins insisted that revenge was never to be part of the conduct of the Squad, leading many of the shooters to presume that killings such as that of Lee-Wilson, who had maltreated Tom Clarke after the 1916 Rising, was principally an act of military necessity, rather than an act of revenge. However as generally the shooters were simply given orders to kill not the reasons for the killings there is little substantive illumination on the reasons for some of Collins’ more controversial killings.

Certainly as the war wore on into late 1920 and early 1921 there is a sense that the routinisation of killing led to a toleration of revenge and reprisal comparable to that shown by Lloyd George and his Cabinet in their conduct of the war: Todd Andrews, later a distinguished Irish public servant, who participated in a support role to the Squad in the Bloody Sunday operation in late 1920, noted how the behaviour of some of his comrades resembled that of the Black and Tans.

And, however justifiable was this campaign, the author does not allow the reader to lose sight of the fact that it resulted in the killing, often brutal, of other human beings: in the Squad’s first assasination, of a political detective Patrick Smyth, they used .38 calibre weapons, which they discovered could not dependably put a man down – Smyth struggled on in pain and fear for a long while after the first bullets hit; the assasination of 22 year old District Inspector Phillip O’Sullivan in front of his fiancee, clearly bothered his killers so much in later life that they could not bring themselves to speak of it.

Nevertheless, in spite of the sense of excess towards the end of the war, the book does confirm a general tendency of restraint and growing democratic sensibility by Collins that compares favourably with many of his contemporaries in British or American politics. The experience of the pity of war seems to have been a major factor in Collins’ own growth as a statesman. His loss continues to cast a long shadow on twentieth century Irish history.

Tiberius (the “T” in “James T. Kirk”!)

This is a very enjoyable account of Roman history through the prism of the careers of the first 12 Caesars. These were not nice people. Even the “good” emperors were bloody men slaughtering guilty and innocent alike: Titus, for example, celebrated his father’s and brother’s birthdays by putting to death thousands of prisoners from the Jewish Revolt. The bad ones, like Caligula and Nero, were even more murderous lunatics.

The book takes as its starting point Suetonius account of the lives but develops its own themes and opinions based on other primary and secondary sources. It does seem to presume significant background knowledge of the lives but I found it entertaining and informative even with limited knowledge of many of the lives.

A World on Fire is a remarkable achievement. It is a history of the American Civil War taken from the novel perspective of the relationship between Britain and the US during the war. Hence the principal characters are Lord Lyons, the British representative to the US, Charles Francis Adams, the US minister to London, and Seward the US Secretary of State with a host of other political and diplomatic figures in support.

This approach illuminates aspects of the war little touched upon by more conventional US histories, notably the real risk to Union victory posed by recognition of the South by the European powers, and the closeness to war between the US and Britain on a number of occasions. Consequently this book provides a more critical portrayal of Seward than, say, Doris Kearns Goodwin’s masterful biography of Lincoln, Team of Rivals.

This diplomatic history of the war is told within the framework of a more conventional political and military narrative of the course of the war. Here a perspective on the fighting is offered by, principally, the letters and memoirs of the British and Irish volunteers who fought for both North and South.

At times it is difficult to keep up with the astonishing cast of characters that Foreman has assembled, but it is well worth the effort for the startlingly fresh perspective that this book puts on the American Civil War.

HHhH is the story of Operation Anthropoid: the plot to assassinate the truly vile Reinhard Heydrich, the architect of the genocide of the Jews and Roma, by the Czechoslovak government in exile in collaboration with the in-country resistance.

In spite of being very familiar with the story from other books and movies, I found this one of the most exciting books that I have read in a long time: truly gripping, action packed and ultimately a story of devastating tragedy.

In homage to this Czechoslovakian epic the French author, Laurent Binet, has

Memorial to Czech parachutists, Including Gabcik and Kubis, killed in battle with SS

adopted a very “Kunderian” style, weaving in and out of the story himself, as the Czech writer Milan Kundera often does, with his personal reflections upon it and concerns on how he can do the story and his heroes, Kubis and Gabcik (along with the hordes of other resistants and Czech civilians who made the operation possible and paid with their lives), justice.

Many readers may find this approach irritating and something of a turn-off (I didn’t, finding it engaging and interesting in and of itself), but the substance of the story is still compelling. Binet calls this the story of the single greatest act of resistance in the course of the Second World War. It is hard to argue with that and this book is a fine tribute.

Untying the Knots is an exemplary work of biography and journalism. Shortly after Jorge Mario Bergoglio’s election as pope Paul Vallely, the author, spent some time travelling to Rome and Buenos Aires to meet friends and enemies of the new pope. The result of this research is this book.

Despite being relatively short it is teeming with detail, including sketches of Argentinian politics, the origins and conduct of the “Dirty War”, and the machinations of two papal elections, as well as the origins and career of the new pope, Francis.

The central issues of the book relate to Bergoglio’s personal conduct during the Dirty War and what sort of a pope he will be. In relation to the first question Vallely explores in some depth the key question relating to Bergoglio’s role in the kidnapping and torture of two Jesuit priests by the military junta when he was Provincial of that order.

The answer to that first question is fundamental in Vallely’s assessment of the second. In the end Vallely paints a convincing picture of a man who was politically conservative and personally authoritarian in his youth, making some dreadful mistakes as a result of which some innocent people were killed, imprisoned and tortured. But while remaining quite conservative Bergoglio appears to be someone who, as a result of deep shame at past misconduct and misjudgement, has grown into a generous and courageous figure.

It will be interesting to see the sort of pope that Bergoglio becomes as Francis but Vallely presents considerable evidence to suggest a hopeful prospect based on his radical conduct in the first months of his pontificate.