6) Endgame in Ireland, by Eamonn Mallie and David McKittrick
This is basically a chronological account of the peace process, starting really from the Brighton bomb in 1984 and finishing in the depressing summer of 2001 when everything appeared to be stalemated. Mallie and McKittrick have used the archives of the four-part BBC series of the same name, which I haven’t seen, but which I imagine covers much the same points in much the same way. I didn’t really learn a lot from this, except that (as ever) my perceptions of what was happening through the media at the time were only loosely linked with the reality of behind the scenes; and the tale of the internal wranglings of the Ulster Unionist Party are now an incidental detail of history – the real story is now the shift in the DUP approach over the last few years. It’s well-written and thorough but has now been overtaken by events.
I’m not sure Amazon are distinctly evil – they are just capitalism writ large, surely? It should be for governments to act where monopolies are coming into being, since they are supposed to act in our interests, so once again it would seem to be a regulatory failure. If the last 30-40 years has taught us anything, it is surely that laissez-faire policies can have unfortunate and (perhaps) unanticipated consequences.