In his book, Empire Made: My Search for an Outlaw Uncle who Vanished in British India, Kief Hilsbery recounts his journey to find a long-lost relative who disappeared in Asia during the apex of Britain’s hegemony. Empire Made is part history, part mystery, and part travelogue as Hilsbery describes his modern-day pilgrimage retracing his Uncle’s passage through India while explaining the historical events that made British India.

Empire Made is well-written, well-researched, and presents history in an entertaining and enlightening manner rather than a dry textbook style. Hilsbery frames events in the context of a story but allows the reader to peek into life a hundred years ago with culture, customs, and British rule as viewed by India itself.

However, Empire Made has some significant drawbacks. The first is that some of the historical accounts have been fictionalized, making it difficult to distinguish what is true and what is not. Secondly, there seems to be a preoccupation with the uncle’s sexual orientation and, finally, Hilsbery’s consultation with a seeress to verify his relative’s final resting place is dark and disturbing. Therefore, I regret that I cannot recommend it.


I was given a free copy from the publisher in exchange for my honest review

This book would have been better as a long essay. The author begins the book as a search for an Uncle who left England to work in India for the Dutch East India Company and never returned. The book alternates between the early 1800s and the author quest in present day looking for information about his Uncle. Because there is not a lot of information about the Uncle the author includes a lot of background history. The book is well written and I enjoyed reading about the author's travels. The history of the region and the company is interesting but the parts about the uncle does not work. Only portions of the Uncle's letters are quoted and there is a lot of speculation. Despite the title there is no evidence that the Uncle was an Outlaw. There are a lot more interesting characters in the book than the Uncle. At the end I learned a lot about India but not much about the Uncle.

Thank you to the publishers and Netgalley for offering me "Empire Made".Unfortunately I am unable to review this interesting sounding book because the format does not suit any of my e-readers.

Not a review. Unfortunately, I cannot view the book due to its availability in acsm format.

I read a fair amount of this eArc from NetGalley. I probably could have gotten through more if the author stuck to one storyline. I was mildly interested in his relative's experiences in India, but I found the interludes where he shares his own experiences in India in the 1970s to be distracting. (At least in the parts I read) None of the more modern stuff includes any information that adds any great depth to the historical story. Instead of adding modern insight onto what happened, it only breaks up the narrative flow. Did not finish on purpose.