Cloth $95.00 ISBN: 9781846317439 Published March 2012 For sale in North America only
Paper $34.95 ISBN: 9781846317101 Published February 2012 For sale in North America only

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Smashing H Block

The Popular Campaign against Criminalization and the Irish Hunger Strikes 1976-1982

F. Stuart Ross

Smashing H Block
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F. Stuart Ross

Distributed for Liverpool University Press

224 pages | 6 x 9
Cloth $95.00 ISBN: 9781846317439 Published March 2012 For sale in North America only
Paper $34.95 ISBN: 9781846317101 Published February 2012 For sale in North America only

The period from 1976 to 1982 is widely regarded as a crucial turning point in the Irish Troubles. As time has passed the historic prison hunger strikes of 1980 and 1981 have taken on near mythic resonance, somewhat distorting the broader picture of the Irish republican struggle against criminalization. Focusing on the popular movement outside the prisons, Smashing H-Block gives us a gripping, thorough account of this fateful time and reveals how these years of protest reshaped and revitalized modern Irish republicanism.

Drawing on extensive archival research and the widest range of sources available, F. Stuart Ross paints a compelling portrait of the last great wave of activism and mobilization with the nationalist population. He argues that the protests outside of the infamous H-Blocks of Maze Prison challenged republican orthodoxy, while, more broadly, he examines the importance of popular grassroots movements in effecting political and social change. 

Belfast Telegraph
“This is an important book for the light it throws on the politics of the period and, in particular, in restoring the plain people to their proper place in the narrative….What the account makes clear is that the movement against the H-Blocks wasn't whistled up by republican leaders but was—like many other significant developments, including the peace process—a bottom-up affair.…F. Stuart Ross's book is essential for an understanding of what really happened in the hunger strike.”
Eamonn McCann | Belfast Telegraph
“This is an important book for the light it throws on the politics of the period and, in particular, in restoring the plain people to their proper place in the narrative….What the account makes clear is that the movement against the H-Blocks wasn't whistled up by republican leaders but was—like many other significant developments, including the peace process—a bottom-up affair.”
Brendan Lynn | Irish Literary Supplement
“The path from being on the political fringe of the political scene in Northern Ireland to its present position as the dominant voice of northern nationalism could not have been achieved without the events from 1976-1981. Ross has shed valuable new light on how this was achieved. For those attempting to understand Northern Ireland’s past and present, Smashing H-Block will prove to be a important contribution.”
For more information, or to order this book, please visit http://www.press.uchicago.edu
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