In The Riddle of the Sands, a gripping spy story set amongst the shoals and mists of the North Sea coast in the years before the First World War, Erskine Childers fathered the modern genre of spy adventures, as well as writing a great yachting classic. Unlike John Buchan or John le Carré, however, Childers himself led a life involving spying, gun-running and conspiracy, and a constant search for adventure and danger, which led in the end to his execution by firing squad in Ireland in 1923.
The Tragedy of Erskine Childers tells the extraordinary story of a brilliant and highly talented eccentric. A pioneering yachtsman in the early days of small yacht sailing, Childers became such a fervent supporter of Irish nationalism that he ran guns to Ireland on his boat. In the Irish Civil War his extremism, and wish to take part in active service rather than write propaganda, led to his betrayal, trial and execution.

Dennis Showalter is Professor of History at The Colorado College and has been Mc Dermott Chair at the U. S. Military Academy, as well as a Distinguished Visiting Professor there and at the U.S. Air Force Academy and H.L. Oppenheimer Professor at the Marine Corps University. Among his publications are History in Dispute: World War I (2002) and History in Dispute: The Second World War (2000), The Wars of Frederick the Great (1996), and Tannenberg: Clash of Empires (1990).

William J. Astore is Associate Provost and Dean of Students, Defense Language Institute Foreign Language Center. With Dennis Showalter, he is the co-author of Hindenburg: Icon of German Militarism (forthcoming).