North/South: The Great European Divide. Ricardo J. Quinones. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2016. xii + 178 pp. $50.
treaty (xxviii). Further introductory material expands on each of these five sets—the Waring copies made in 1645–46, the items collected by the Dublin Commission between 1641 and 1647, the Bisse depositions taken in 1642, the 1640s examinations, and a later set collected between 1652 and 1654—identifying (where possible) those commissioned to take statements and their instructions and procedures in collecting, as well as other pertinent information essential to analysis of their contents. Each volume also contains an introduction specific to its contents. These are helpful in drawing attention to and assessing individual depositions that contribute substantially to new understandings of the full nature and impact of the Rising at the local level. Volume 3’s introduction to the documents from County Antrim, for instance, points out their importance in revealing “a series of little known episodes in which catholic Scots turned upon their protestant fellow soldiers, Scottish soldiers turned upon their Irish fellow soldiers and settlers and natives turned upon one another” (li). As the editors point out, this same set also exemplifies the danger of erroneous historical assessment caused by the disordered nature of the documents in their original state, where, in some cases, their misplacement under the individual’s new location rather than place of origin precluded accurate identification and hence analysis of localized episodes, a problem that simultaneously masked the populations’ dispersal in the wake of violence. This edition of the depositions provides an essential tool to understanding the 1641 Rising more accurately and comprehensively, opening up to the public an invaluable resource that can move forward the study of this pivotal event in Irish and British colonial history.