This collection of essays explores the nature and dynamics of Ireland's land questions during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, and also the ways in which the Irish land question has been written about by historians.

The book makes a vital contribution to the study of historiography by including for the first time the reflections of a group of prominent historians on their earlier work. These historians consider their influences and how their views have changed since the publication of their books, so that these essays provide an ethnographic study of historians' thoughts on the shelf-life of books exploring the way history is made.

The book will be of interest to historians of modern Ireland, and those interested in the revisionist debate in Ireland, as well as to sociologists and anthropologists studying Ireland or rural societies.