H. W. Crocker III Audiobooks

The Politically Incorrect Guide to the British Empire: history that argues back

1 audiobook reviewed

★ 4.5/5 average

223 listener ratings

Who is H. W. Crocker III?

Popular history sometimes arrives spoiling for an argument, and this one declares as much in the title. The Politically Incorrect Guides are a long running sequence of contrarian handbooks, each taking a subject its author believes has been flattened by consensus and turning it over in public. H. W. Crocker III took the British Empire.

The approach is polemical rather than academic, and the book is entirely candid about that. Expect brisk chapters, a fondness for anecdote and personality, and a case advanced with more relish than hedging. Whether you finish nodding or arguing, it is written to be engaged with rather than absorbed passively, which is rarer in history writing than it ought to be.

H. W. Crocker III in audiobooks

Ray Porter narrates, and the pairing is well judged. The delivery is dry and confident, a register that suits a book built on assertion and counter-assertion, and across eleven hours it keeps the pace up without hurrying the set pieces.

Several hundred listeners have rated the recording and the average has held high, which for a title of this vintage says something about how it has aged with an audience. Come for the argument as much as for the history, and be ready to disagree in places. The listing is waiting underneath.