Clara’s Verdict
Rory Carroll has form when it comes to taking complex, morally fractured figures and rendering them with the pace of a thriller. He did it magnificently with Killing Thatcher, and here he does it again with Roger Casement – a man who was simultaneously Britain’s most celebrated humanitarian diplomat and, by the end, its most reviled traitor. A Rebel and a Traitor is the kind of history that makes you realise how thin the line is between heroism and betrayal, depending entirely on which side of it you happen to be standing. Carroll never lets Casement off the hook, but he never caricatures him either. That balance is everything, and it is very hard to maintain across a narrative this complex.
What elevates this above the standard popular history is Carroll’s command of the intelligence dimension. The spy chief Reginald ‘Blinker’ Hall – Casement’s nemesis – gets as much space as Casement himself, and the interplay between these two extraordinary men gives the book the structure of a genuine thriller. Codebreaking, surveillance, media manipulation: Hall pioneered all of them, and Carroll shows how these tools were turned on a man who had once been celebrated throughout the empire he came to oppose.
Stephen Hogan’s narration is superb – measured, Irish, and carrying the weight of someone who understands that this story has never really ended. Over eleven and a half hours, this is one of the finest history audiobooks I have listened to this year.
About the Audiobook
The story opens in London in 1914. Roger Casement – knight, consul, celebrated exposer of atrocities in the Congo and the Amazon – is preparing to address the Royal Commission. He is a man at the height of his reputation. Within two years, he will be hanged as a traitor.
Carroll traces the full arc of Casement’s extraordinary life: his formative years in Africa, the horrifying truth of what Leopold II’s regime was doing in the Congo, and the growing disillusionment that led this decorated imperialist to turn against the empire he had served. The pivot comes gradually, then all at once – Casement’s identity as an Irishman reasserts itself, and by the time war breaks out in 1914, he is in Germany trying to recruit Irish prisoners of war to fight against Britain. His mission fails. He is arrested on a beach in County Kerry, smuggled ashore from a German submarine, and the rest unfolds with the terrible inevitability of Greek tragedy.
Parallel to Casement’s story runs that of Reginald ‘Blinker’ Hall, the British intelligence chief who became his nemesis. Hall was a genuine pioneer – of codebreaking, of mass surveillance, of what we might now call information warfare. Carroll draws on declassified archives in four countries to show the full cat-and-mouse dynamic between these two remarkable men. The result raises questions about patriotism, colonial guilt, and the nature of courage that feel anything but settled, and that resonate particularly strongly in the current climate of Anglo-Irish relations.
The Narration
Stephen Hogan brings real authority to this material. His Irish inflection is never overdone – it provides texture rather than performance – and he handles Carroll’s long passages of historical analysis with the same ease as the more dramatic set-pieces. The pacing is excellent: Hogan seems to understand instinctively where Carroll wants the listener to slow down and sit with something uncomfortable, and where to let the narrative gather speed. At eleven hours and twenty-four minutes, this never feels like a lecture. It feels like being told a story by someone who has spent years thinking about it and has finally found the right way to speak.
What Readers Say
Early listeners have praised the book’s depth and readability in equal measure. One reviewer described it as “an evocative and moving story” that covers Casement’s life in “minute detail – his early days in Africa, the Congo and South America are all covered, his growing fame as a diplomat, and then his fall.” Another called it simply “recommended” – noting it took a little time to build momentum but then “told an engaging story that kept me entertained throughout.” The book holds an early rating of 4.0 stars from UK listeners. Critical praise has been strong, with the Irish Times calling it “a thrilling account of one of the most unpredictable, memorable and poignant figures in our history” and Max Hastings in The Sunday Times describing it as “terrifically readable.”
Who Should Listen?
If you have ever read about Easter 1916 and felt the tragedy deserves fuller examination, or if you have any interest in the mechanics of British imperial intelligence, Carroll’s new book belongs in your ears immediately. This is essential listening for anyone engaged with Irish history, the psychology of colonial disillusionment, or the story of how surveillance states develop their tools. It is also simply gripping narrative history – accessible to listeners who know nothing about Casement and rewarding for those who think they know the story already. Rory Carroll proves again that he is among the most gifted popular historians working today.
Listen on Audible UK: Get A Rebel and a Traitor on Audible UK. Also available on Kobo, Scribd, and Storytel.
