R. F. Foster is Professor of Irish History and Literature at Queen Mary University of London and Emeritus Professor of Irish History at the University of Oxford. His many books include Modern Ireland: 1600-1972, the two-volume W. B. Yeats: A Life, and, most recently, Vivid Faces: The Revolutionary Generation in Ireland, 1890-1923. Foster's writing has appeared in the Guardian, the New York Review of Books, the Irish Times, and many other publications. He lives in London.