IMPERIAL RECKONING: THE UNTOLD STORY OF BRITAINS GULAG IN KENYA PDF, EPUB, EBOOK Caroline Elkins | 475 pages | 27 Dec 2005 | Henry Holt & Company | 9780805080018 | English | New York, NY, United Kingdom Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britains Gulag in Kenya PDF Book As Anderson points out, death sentences were chillingly more common in Kenya than in places such as Palestine or Malaya. This book is very hard to read, though not because of the quality of the prose. Article Types. Elkins demonstrates how the colonial officials squirmed and twisted to justify their actions that clearly contravened Geneva and other human rights conventions; they did this mostly by redefining who counts as human. She lets shine the brilliance of men in torture-work camps who created means to communicate across distances and laid out codes of behavior to reinforce solidarity and create space for kindness and humanity amidst the cruelty. Under penalty of unimaginable tortures, many thousands refused to confess an oath or denounce a comrade-- for no material benefit, as the British only escalated the torture and their totalitarian war on Mau Mau meant silence didn't create safety since those protected were already in the net-- but still they refused. Rate this book. Sections Account Sections. Jun 25, Timothy Riley rated it really liked it Shelves: european-history , inequality , international-relations , africa. I can't think where ricklibrarian got his information from, but as far as Tanzania is concerned, it is entirely erroneous. But brutality was common and took place at every level, ranging from electrocution and mutilation to beatings and various forms of sexual assault and humiliation. Karume himself was assassinated a short while later by Africans opposed to his brutal rule. Beatings were routine, living quarters were rudimentary, health and sanitation facilities practically nonexistent. BookBrowse seeks out and recommends the best in contemporary fiction and nonfiction—books that not only engage and entertain but also deepen our understanding of ourselves and the world around us. After years of research in London and Kenya, including interviews with hundreds of Kenyans, settlers, and former British officials, Elkins has written the first book about the eight-year British war against the Mau Mau. Coronavirus U. But neither of these perspectives are within the relatively narrow scope of Elkins's project. The result was the death of somewhere between one and three hundred thousand Kikuyu, out of a pre-Emergency population of roughly 1. By contrast, Elkins estimates that "somewhere between , and , Kikuyu are unaccounted for. Sep 22, Dan rated it really liked it Shelves: pulitzer-non-fiction. During the Emergency, Kenyatta, imprisoned after a show trial, was demonized as the head of the Mau Mau. It's a fragile means to support her case, partly because we're left wondering whether the other tribes also grew more swiftly than the Kikuyu during earlier periods. Make an offer:. They are "through work comes freedom". Paperback Travel Story. The author discloses in the beginning of the book that this book was borne from her dissertation, and it reads as a dissertation. First I have to say that this book toook me quite a long time to read. What does this price mean? She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts. About this book Summary. Additional Product Features Dewey Edition. Mau Mau was an uprising among the Kikuyu tribe of British Kenya, essentially a response to economic privation due to losses of land at the hands of British settlers. Rating details. Only a handful of years later a group of Kenyans seek their freedom and independence and there are a few killings of white settlers. Carothers, a famous ethnopsychiatrist, who diagnosed the Kikuyu with a form of "mass psychosis" arising from "a crisis of transition between primitive and modern worlds. Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britains Gulag in Kenya Writer Nobody cared about where they were hitting me. The compelling story of the system of prisons and work camps where thousands met their deaths was the victim of a determined effort by the British to destroy all official records of their attempts to stop the Mau Mau uprising. Based on her early research in the official archives, she planned to write a history of the success of Britain's "civilizing mission" -- including civics courses and home-craft classes -- in the detention camps of Kenya during the Mau Mau conflict. Stay tuned for the latest from Foreign Affairs. See details for additional description. I recommend the superb Italian documentary English subtitles , Africa Addio , reporting on massacres by the indigenous population of whites in Tanzania and Arabs in Zanzibar, respectively. Other editions. With voluminous evidence, Caroline Elkins exposes the long suppressed crimes and brutalities that democratic Britain and British settlers willingly perpetrated upon hundreds of thousands of Africans -- truths that will permit no one of good faith to continue to accept the mythologized account of Britain''s colonial past as merely a "civilizing mission. Very well-researched book. Brand New! But neither of these perspectives are within the relatively narrow scope of Elkins's project. As with any incipient genocide, the logic was all too easy to follow. Her interviews with the survivors of this British ''gulag'' are a labor of love and courage- impressive in their frankness and deep emotional content as well as properly balanced between men and women, colonial officials and Mau Mau detainees. Foster Associate Professor of African Studies at Harvard University coils in her chair and speaks with rapid force about her book that recently won the Pulitzer Prize. Caroline Elkins tells a story that would never have made it into the historical record had she not persevered and collected information from the last generation of Mau Mau detainees alive to bear witness to what happened. I would have liked to have seen the author provide more of a history and overall context on Kenya. Was there an organized Mau Mau leadership? Apr 13, Sheridan rated it it was amazing. It further reveals the great lengths to which the British lied and covered up their savagery. That said, it is an eye-opening book in so many ways. Comments 1. She quotes a survivor recalling a torment evocative of Abu Ghraib: lines of Kikuyu detainees ordered to strip naked and embrace each other randomly, and a woman committing suicide after being forced into the arms of her son-in-law. Sep 01, Tinea rated it it was amazing. The British government, however, is denying its obligation to compensate these victims! Some aspects of the book that were particularly interesting to me were shocker the gender issues. In the previous ten-year period the brutality was inflicted on many Kikuyu by British colonialists and loyalist Kenyans. But Elkins also touches on one perhaps less obvious reason: the post-independence betrayal of the Kikuyu by their leaders, in particular Kenya's first president Jomo Kenyatta. This book is about a mass internment that you probably don't know about--the mass- imprisonment of almost an entirety of the largest tribe in Kenya under the British. Britain had just helped defeat Germany in WWII and liberate concentration and death camps filled with people. A few pages of this leaves you feeling a kind of generalized anger combined with dull despair, not exactly the best frame of mind for reading. Imperial Reckoning shows us how these images neglected to show the brutality and savagery being committed against the Kenyan Kikuyu people detained by the British. I cried multiple times reading it, but I don't regret a word. Accountability for War Crimes? While some are now contrite, others view their actions with pride. Be the first one to write a review. Elkins does not set out to revise well-documented accounts of Mau Mau violence but to contextualize them against a vast and capricious system of colonial repression. Through exhaustive research in neglected colonial archives and intrepid reporting among long-forgotten Kikuyu elders in Kenya's Rift Valley, Elkins has documented not just the true scale of a huge and harrowing crime--Britain's ruthless suppression of the Mau Mau rebellion--but also the equally shocking concealment of that crime and the inversion of historical memory. Books Are the New Black Tote. Caroline Elkins tells a story that would never have made it i, Imperial Reckoning is an incredible piece of historical sleuthing. After Kenya won her independence in , many loyalists were given positions in government and the grievances of the Mau Mau were never addressed. People are sent away just from a nod of a loyalist head. Elkins tends to frame the violence in an anticolonial context; Anderson's more sociological approach puts greater emphasis on intra-Kikuyu conflict, mostly over land but also over religion and the nature of Kikuyu identity, and shows that the urban African elites who would lead the struggle for independence were little involved in Mau Mau and in many cases explicitly opposed it. As Conservative Party governments funneled investment into white settlers' estates, the Kikuyu saw their already diminished landholdings and economic opportunities shrink further. It will cause the reader to question the reputation of Winston Churchill and Harold Macmillan. First I have to say that this book toook me quite a long time to read. From until the end of the war in tens of thousands of detainees - and possibly a hundred thousand or more - died from the combined effects of exhaustion, disease, starvation and systemic physical brutality. To ask other readers questions about Imperial Reckoning , please sign up. Even many clergy in Kenya were complicit because much of their missionary support was routed through the Colonial government.