Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Marianne Elliott ... is better qualified than anyone to crack the Tone conundrum. Her meticulously documented Wolfe Tone balances a narrative of well-judged pace-accelerating as it reaches the climax of Tone's suicide before his execution-with clear, often subtle analysis... This is the fullest account of Tone's life to date; it is readable and warmly but critically sympathetic.-Angus Macintyre, Times Literary Supplement A] cool, splendidly researched biography... If Marianne Elliott dismantles the myth she in no way debunks the individual. Rather she releases a much more admirable figure, humane, high spirited, cultivated, vary much of his turbulent, radical liberal times.-Peter Lennon, The Guardian A work of such thorough and perceptive skill that there will never need to be another.-The Observer A splendid biography.-John Kavanagh, The Irish Post Tone] has for the first time received a thorough biography by the talented scholar, Marianne Elliott... Tone himself now comes alive in Elliott's completely researched pages and in her meticulous reconstruction of Tone's exciting world and its rush of events. Superb notes, bibliography, and index, plus a revealing closing ess

Reviews provided by Syndetics

CHOICE Review

Theobald Wolfe Tone (1763-1798), one of the major figures in the forging of Irish republican nationalism, has for the first time received a thorough biography by the talented scholar, Marianne Elliott (University of Manchester). Heretofore more the subject of legend makers, Tone's dramatic career emphasized his revolutionary side more than his desire to unite all sectors, religious and political, into a nationally cohesive body. Though he was instrumental in awakening Catholic sentiment for independence, his strength was derived from his Northern Ireland Protestant homeland, and he personally adhered to no religion. No firebrand, Tone is portrayed as an ideologist who fell into revolution more through circumstance than conviction. Most important, Tone himself now comes alive in Elliott's completely researched pages and in her meticulous reconstruction of Tone's exciting world and its rush of events. Superb notes, bibliography, and index, plus a revealing closing essay on the tortuous building of the "cult of Tone" that followed his death. College, university, and public libraries. -G. M. Straka, University of Delaware