Britain's Gulag
The Brutal End of Empire in KenyaSelect a format:
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Summary
The twentieth anniversary edition of Caroline Elkins’s Pulitzer Prize-winning exposé, now with a new introduction
After decades of British rule in Kenya, 1952 saw the start of the Mau Mau uprising – a mass armed rebellion by the Kikuyu people, demanding the return of their land and freedom. The draconian response of Britain's colonial government was to detain nearly the entire Kikuyu population of 1.5 million. Detainees in their thousands – possibly a hundred thousand or more – died from exhaustion, disease, starvation and systemic physical brutality. For decades these events remained untold.
Caroline Elkins conducted years of research to piece together this story, unearthing reams of documents and interviewing several hundred Kikuyu survivors. A groundbreaking account of Kenya’s fight for independence and its violent suppression, Britain's Gulag details the ruthless determination with which Britain sought to uphold its empire.
'An extraordinary act of historical recovery' New Yorker
'Disturbing and horrifying...important and memorable' Caroline Moorehead
After decades of British rule in Kenya, 1952 saw the start of the Mau Mau uprising – a mass armed rebellion by the Kikuyu people, demanding the return of their land and freedom. The draconian response of Britain's colonial government was to detain nearly the entire Kikuyu population of 1.5 million. Detainees in their thousands – possibly a hundred thousand or more – died from exhaustion, disease, starvation and systemic physical brutality. For decades these events remained untold.
Caroline Elkins conducted years of research to piece together this story, unearthing reams of documents and interviewing several hundred Kikuyu survivors. A groundbreaking account of Kenya’s fight for independence and its violent suppression, Britain's Gulag details the ruthless determination with which Britain sought to uphold its empire.
'An extraordinary act of historical recovery' New Yorker
'Disturbing and horrifying...important and memorable' Caroline Moorehead
Reviews
A tale of systematic violence and high-level cover-ups
Guardian
