Sounds like you were looking for a polemic and were disappointed to documentary work instead. Strangely enough I lerned a great deal about colonial misrule of India from reading the same book, but that doesn't make the viewpoints of the pro-empire participants less interesting.
Au contraire. It is not polemic to call a spade a spade. Nor it is documentary work to propagate a biased and watered down version. In fact, it is propaganda. If you have the appetite for colonial misrule these articles might help paint a backdrop:
