Broken Archangel

This minutely researched, superbly written and genuinely exciting biography explores and ultimately convincingly explains the historical conundrum that was Sir Roger Casement. I can’t remember turning the pages of a non-fiction book so eagerly to find out what happened next, secure in the knowledge that with Roland Philipps I was in the hands of a master-storyteller

Andrew Roberts, author of Churchill

One of the many outstanding things about this book is that Philipps has managed to yoke together the extraordinarily disparate sides of Roger Casement’s character into a comprehensible whole. In doing so, he has rescued him from the ignominy to which he has been unjustly consigned.

John Preston, author of A Very English Scandal

Roland Philipps’s comprehensive, perceptive and sympathetic biography does full justice to Casement’s odyssey from dysfunctional Ulster boyhood, through imperial service campaigning for exploited native workers, to his eventual execution as a nationalist revolutionary. It is a rich and compulsively readable treatment of the most extraordinary of Irish lives

Roy Foster, Emeritus Professor of Irish History, University of Oxford

A superb portrait of an enigma. Roland Philipps has produced a masterful biography, full of compassion and verve. In bringing Casement to life, he has resurrected a figure who deserves to be known as the first modern human rights campaigner, one who saved countless lives and gave voice to those who could not be heard, before being undone by some of his deepest and innermost divisions. This is a vivid, poignant and hugely moving account of an extraordinary life

Henry Hemming, author of Agents of Influence

Patriot, human rights campaigner, knight of the realm, traitor. Roger Casement was a complex, appealing, deeply flawed man. In Roland Philipps, he has found the biographer he deserves. This meticulous, sympathetic, elegantly written account gives one of the 20th century's most controversial and tragic players the attention he deserves

Michela Wrong, author of In the Footsteps of Mr Kurtz

Philipps is sympathetic to his subject and a careful chronicler of diplomatic and intelligence intrigues … he makes a persuasive case that Casement was a fractured personality who embraced causes to fill an emotional void

Guardian

Casement is the Odysseus of Roland Philipp's epic, Broken Archangel, and Philipps is a worthy chronicler. It is a book of meticulous sensitivity and research ... It is a model, in other words, for how to write a biography of a gay person who lived before widespread acceptance

Daily Telegraph

[An] extraordinary biography … Philipps [is] an accomplished biographer with a knack for getting under the skin of his subjects … There’s a wonderful immediacy to this portrait, as if Casement sits in the room with us, discussing his life, revealing his secrets

The Times

Meticulous and sympathetic ... [a] fine book

Literary Review

Vivid and compelling

Irish Times

[An] authoritative and impressively clear-sighted biography ... A vivid and striking portrait of this deeply conflicted man

Irish Independent

Roland Philipps' calm, authoritative and sympathetic new account surely comes close to being definitive

The Tablet

Tells the story [of Casement] at a cracking pace

Inside Story

[A] well-researched and engagingly narrated biography … For those looking for an accurate, fluidly written account of Casement in his own era, this biography is easy to recommend … [his] treason trial are ably transformed into a page-turning finale

History Today

The chief virtues of Broken Archangel are its compact size and energetic narrative. For the stranger to Casement’s life, this is the book to buy

Times Literary Supplement

An excellent introduction to a vexed era in British and Irish history

Scottish Legal News

Remarkable ... Broken Archangel is an exceptionally well researched and psychologically shrewd portrait of his deeply lonely idealist

Irish Independent *Best Books of 2024*

Philipps is constantly seeking to probe below the surface for answers ... A valuable contribution to a wider understanding and appreciation of Sir Roger Casement ... A long overdue appreciation of a true Irish hero

Morning Star

[Casement's] life contained multitudes ... All of this is handled with great care in Roland Philipps' accessible new biography ... There is much to admire about the writing in this biography ... Philipps does a fine job

New Statesman