The tribe in question is the Orange Order, which certainly needs all the advocacy it can get, deserved or not. Ruth Dudley Edwards runs far back in history, to the Battle of the Boyne and even Cromwell, though the Orange view she quotes of William of Orange is a strangely idealised one and is even unhistorical (that cold, politic prince was in fact no friend of Dissenters during his reign; neither was he a particularly good soldier). She works hard to be fair and objective, but the book suffers overall from too broad a canvas, producing at times a kind of potted version of history which verges on superficiality. She certainly shows that Orangeism has its historical raison d'etre - a fact of which most of us hardly need reminding - but does not dispel the overall impression that it is based largely on a purblind political philosophy and has less and less relevance in today's world.