112 SOCIAL SCIENTIST focuses on the environment and dynamic of the pre-factory linen industry in Northern Ireland during the eighteenth century, rooted in the small farms and cottages of rural Ulster. The earlier crafts could not become pre-factory precursors of the industrial base; on the contrary, they declined in the face of competition from other parts of the U.K., and faced de-industrialisation during the late nineteenth century. This volume, though based mainly on secondary sources, provides an illuminating comparative perspective regarding the regional peculiarities of the emerging first industrial nation. But such a perspective needs to be integrated with national and international analysis, otherwise one may simply see the trees and miss the forest. BRAHMA NAND Department of History A.R.S.D. College, University of Delhi