Rational Choice (Readings in Social & Political Theory)

The best book ever published on ethnic units in the American Civil War.
- Journal of Southern History ,

Anyone serious about their Irish-American history will have to get The Harp and the Eagle
- Irish Echo ,

Professor Susannah Ural Bruce's remarkable - and highly readable - study explores the complex political and historical motives that sent 150,000 Irish Catholic soldiers into the ranks of the Union Army during the Civil War. For the majority of Irish soldiers the cause of the union was inextricably linked to the cause of Irish independence and Bruce's wide ranging study paints a complex and evocative picture of the network of alliances and experiences that animated Irish participation in the war effort. Recommended.
- Irish Voice ,

With remarkable sensitivity and acuity Bruce goes digging among the personal and public accounts of the Irish soldiers in the Union army and presents these soldiers, and their families and communities, on their own terms so that they emerge as real people conflicted and changed by the demands of war and the obligations of 'community.' The result is a book of immediate interest.
-Randall M. Miller, author of Union Soldiers and the Northern Home Front: Wartime Experiences, Postwar Adjustments

Bruce's research is deep and thorough, and it is presented effectively. She has made a major contribution to understanding the sentiments of Irish America at a critical time.
--- Journal of American Ethnic History ,