Maurice Coakley Ireland in the World Order: A History of Uneven Development, Pluto Press: London, 2012; 256 pp: 0745331254, 20 [pounds sterling] (pbk) Maurice Coakley presents an ambitious 'world system' interpretation of Irish history from the 12th century onwards. The central thesis of the book is that Ireland's underdevelopment can only be understood through a comparative historical framework, and that the history of uneven development illuminates why some countries progress and others decline. The work itself, however, fails to sustain the authors claim (p. vii) to 'present an alternative' to 'the dominant interpretation of Irish history'. Despite this shortcoming, the use of a 'world system' perspective is welcome, as is the comparative approach, and the author is strong when on the terrain of Immanuel Wallerstein, Robert Brenner and Perry Anderson. However, Coakley takes an eclectic approach to theory and history. This is reflected by the number of comparisons utilised here: there is seemingly no geographic or theoretical similarity that cannot be employed to prove his thesis. Ultimately, the book posits a number of interesting questions, but the most innovative thesis--that 'literisation', or the spread of literacy, is a valid indicator of market, commercial and, eventually, industrial development--remains unproven. Due to the eclectic approach, and significant omissions from the relevant historiography examined, this book can only be recommended to the specialist reader, rather than a general audience. Ireland in the World Order begins with Coakley polemically taking aim at Irish professional historians. They (p. vii) are accused of avoiding analysis of the British--Irish structural relationship as a point of 'methodological principle'. It is never explained, however, who these historians are, what their writings consist of, nor why their understanding of history may have contributed to some form of 'Stockholm syndrome' amongst the Irish intellectual and political elite (p. viii). The Introduction (pp. 1-5) offers a whirlwind theoretical tour through the Scottish Enlightenment, Marx, Gramsci, modernisation theory, Wallerstein, Arrighi and Brenner. Coakley then proceeds to set up the theoretical and historical problem when he states that Ireland in the 19th-century (p. 5), due to its proximate nature to the home of the new modern world order, 'came to display all the classic features of underdevelopment: immiseration, overpopulation, famine, revolt'. This problematic sets the stage for Coakley's central research question (pp. 1,5): why did Ireland develop 'unevenly', and what legacy has it left to the present? Chapter 1 (pp. 6-80) takes us from medieval Ireland, the Anglo-Norman invasion, the demographic crisis of the 14th century, the Reformation and state formation in the 16th-century through to the 1640s. Chapter 2 (pp. 81-136) essentially covers a 'long eighteenth century' perspective, and again, the reader is offered a whirlwind tour through the complex tale of the Anglo-Irish landed elite, agrarian resistance movements from the early 1760s onwards, the 'Patriots', the United Irishmen, the Famine, and the Land League up to the end of the 19th century. Chapter 3 (pp. 137-88) makes use of a 'long twentieth century' perspective, in which Coakley delineates the changing position of Ireland (north and south from 1922 onwards) in the global capitalist order. The final chapter (pp. 189-211) concludes by retracing the analysis and finishing with a diagnosis of the present ills of Irish society. Here, Coakley posits an interesting thesis about the correlation between literacy, commercialisation, law and, ultimately, industrialisation in England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland; but by the end of the book, the claim remains unproven. More worryingly, there are a number of sins of omission in the book, and the presentation is not to the standard it is legitimate to expect of a book retailing at 19. …