Casement

FULLY REVISED AND ENLARGED EDITION WITH A NEW FOREWORD

At the time of his execution for treason in 1916, few were aware who Roger Casement was or what he represented. Since then, he has been lauded for his investigations into Belgian brutality in the Congo Free State and human rights abuses in the Peruvian rubber industry, but much else about him has remained obscured behind speculation about his sexuality and secret Irish revolutionary activity while in service of the British Empire. As such, his place in history has been ill-defined and multifarious: his involvement in the waging of war followed by the delicate negotiation of peace; his republicanism perceived variously as an eccentric enthusiasm and as a threat to the British Empire; his contemporary legacy overshadowed by the ‘Black Diaries’ of disputed legitimacy, detailing alleged liaisons with young men.

In Casement, Angus Mitchell illuminates a life shrouded in mystery, which operated in the conflicting spheres of British foreign diplomacy and Irish revolutionary activity. Considering Casement’s rebellious nature, Mitchell asks if it was motivated as much by his ‘incorrigible’ Irishness as by his exposure of the appalling crimes against humanity that he witnessed in Africa and South America. Most significantly, Casement demonstrates that his legacy cannot be ascribed to just one cause, whether as a critic of global colonialism or as a founding father of the modern Irish nation-state; Casement’s true commitment was to a universal understanding based on humanity, tolerance, and justice.

Angus Mitchell is recognised internationally for his pioneering research on Roger Casement. He has edited three comprehensive volumes of documents that have transformed understanding of this complicated historical figure: The Amazon Journal of Roger Casement, Sir Roger Casement’s Heart of Darkness, and One Bold Deed of Open Treason: The Berlin Diary of Roger Casement 1914–1916. He collaborated on the making of the Brazilian film Secrets from Putumayo (2022) which recounts Casement’s journey up the Amazon in 1910. He is presently co-editing a volume of Casement’s prison writings.