Individual Choice and the Structures of History: Alexis de Tocqueville as Historian Reappraised Book

Realistically a 3.5.
I admit I was disappointed with the uneven pacing of this book. It spent sadly little time on the pre-politics years of O'Shea. I was hoping for a deeper look at his (and Katharine's and Parnell's) origin story, and instead it felt like Dungan was in a race to get to the political years and entanglement with Parnell. The aforementioned political years and entanglement, however, were meticulously documented to the point of almost feeling like a literal play-by-play, which could be useful but also tedious. The most compelling reading, for me anyway, comes in the chapters 'Divorce' and 'Finis' which serve as the crescendo to the story of the affair's blow up and assessment of the aftermath, respectively. Those looking for more of an introduction or overview might find Dungan surprisingly dense (especially in the middle chapters of the book) but I did appreciate his thoroughness as it underscored the complexity of the constant intersecting of the two men's lives.