The Red Hand by Steve Bruce
Since the start of the "Troubles" in Northern Ireland", working class Protestants have used violence and terror to "defend Ulster from traitorous republicans". Despite being responsible for about half the civilian casualties of the present conflict and despite having subverted major political initiatives, the loyalist paramilitary organizations - The Ulster Defence Association, the Ulster Volunteer Force, the Red Hand Commando and others - have been relatively neglected by scholars. This study, based on extensive interviewing of loyalist terrorists, is a comprehensive survey of a group that is central to the Ulster conflict. "The Red Hand" recounts the history of loyalist terorism, analyzes the motives that inform it, examines the political innovations of the terrorists, critically explores claims of security force collusion with loyalist terror, and concludes by arguing that what appear to be unconnected aspects of loyalist paramilitarism can be understood as having common origins in the problems of trying to use terror to defend, rather than to destroy, the state. The primary importance of the book is in filling a large gap in our understanding of the Northern Ireland conflict; its secondary purpose is to extend our understanding of the relationship between terrorism and the modern state.Steve Bruce, Professor of Sociology, University of Aberdeen Steve Bruce is an internationally renowned sociologist of religion. He taught at The Queen's University, Belfast, from 1978 to 1991 and since 2001 he has been Professor of Sociology at the University of Aberdeen. In 2003 he was elected a Fellow of the British Academy and in 2005 he was elected a
Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. Steve Bruce is the author of a number of books, including Secular Beats Spiritual (OUP, 2017), Bryan Wilson's Religion in Secular Society: Fifty Years On (OUP 2016), and Scottish Gods: Religion in Modern Scotland (Edinburgh University Press, 2014).
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9780192852564 |
| ISBN 10 | 0192852566 |
| Title | The Red Hand |
| Author | Steve Bruce |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Paperback |
| Publisher | Oxford University Press |
| Year published | 1992-08-20 |
| Number of pages | 325 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |