This is one title in a series of short, illustrated biographies. They tell the stories of those who have shaped our present and our past, from Beethoven to Dietrich and from Einstein to Churchill. Roger Casement (1864-1916) is remembered in England as a "traitor", but passionately revered in Ireland as a founding father of the Irish state. By 1913, with an international reputation as a saviour of the oppressed in Africa and South America, Sir Roger Casement resigned from the Foreign Office and devoted himself openly to the cause of Irish independence. He was a founder of the Irish Volunteers and soon after the outbreak of World War I travelled to Germany to seek international guarantees for Irish independence. Returning to Ireland in 1916, he was arrested on the eve of the Easter Rising, given a state trial in London and executed for high treason.
Table of Contents:
Contents
Secrets and Silences // 1
Early Life (1864–1882) // 19
Africa (1883–1904) // 33
Ireland (1904–1914) // 81
Brazil (1906–1913) // 103
Irish Volunteers (1913–1914) // 151
America and Germany (1914–1916) // 179
Easter Rising (1916) // 223
Trial and Execution (1916) // 243
Afterlife and Afterword (1916–2026) // 291
Selected Further Reading // 331
Notes // 335
Index // 371
About the Author :
Angus Mitchell has traced Roger Casement’s movements and paper trails across London, Belfast, Dublin, Berlin, New York, and the far reaches of Africa and South America for over three decades, unearthing inconvenient truths from the archive’s buried recesses. His groundbreaking editions of Casement’s writings – The Amazon Journal of Roger Casement, Sir Roger Casement’s Heart of Darkness: The 1911 Documents, and One Bold Deed of Open Treason: The Berlin Diary of Roger Casement 1914–16 – have reframed scholarly understanding of one of the modern world’s most enigmatic revolutionary intellectuals, and recovered essential perspectives on empire, the archive, decolonisation, and humanitarian activism. He is equally committed to critical pedagogy and his role as a public historian, using film and exhibition curation to challenge academic consensus and bring secret histories to wider audiences.
Mitchell’s research has appeared in the Journal of Victorian Culture, Women's History Review, Irish Historical Studies, The Scottish Historical Review, and the Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Latin American History. He lives in Ireland.
Review :
'An original and vivid profile of a great but enigmatic man.' -- Declan Kiberd The Irish Times 20031110
