Seamus Deane, one of Ireland's most important critics, assesses here the place of literature in "a colonial or neo-colonial culture like ours, where the naming of the territory has always been ... a politically charged act". The force of Deane's A Short History of Irish Literature derives precisely from his naming of the territory. With insight, erudition, and a razor-keen style, he locates Irish writers within the island's traumatic history. His aim is to show how literature has been inescapably allied with historical interpretation and with political allegiance.