Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain's Gulag in Kenya

A fantastic book with stuningly accurate facts.Its eye opening,gripping,exiting ,and shocking. This book reveals the HIDDEN TRUTHS of atrocities perpetrated during the colonial period in Kenya from 1952 when a state of emergency was declaired by the colonial gorvenor of Kenya by bringing a battalion of british soldier with the latesy milltart weaponry including tanks and spitfire bombers of Royal Airforce to fight a war against the Mau Mau freedom guerillar fighters and ordering the detention of over 100 kenyan nationalist agitating for independence Now and return of stolen lands.Colonial rule that had been establishe in 1892 when Kenya was official declared a British colony. The independence struggle of the colonized Kenyans against Colonialism gained peak momentum after the arrest of Jomo Kenyatta a bitter opponent of colonialism and others of the same genre on the night of 20th October 1952. The more radical movement of peasants called Mau Mau was already recruting members by conducting oathing celemonies to its members to foster unity among them ,to embolden them and to instil disipline in preparation for the gurrella war they planned against the colonial Gorverment and settlers.This book is not just a story of how Mau Mau fought in the forests as is what they did but it's focuse is on how the Mau Mau liberation war was fought in detention centers by those Mau Mau soldiers who were unfortunate to be caught in action and detained by the colonial forces with the help of their African Loyalists coloborators.It vividly with astounding accuracy and facts tell the well hidden truth about how the detainees were treated in the most inhuman with shocking descriptions of all different kinds of unnimaginable torture methods perpetrated by their captors,the beatings,the rapes,the murders as described years later as first hand accounts following extensive interviewing by the books Author in their old age on some former detainees who those were lucky enough to survive the horrors of detention during that period.Its so horifying almost unbelivable to read about what human beings are be capable of doing on others . I say this so that you may get a glipse into the magnitude of the sadistic,brutality unleashed on detainees whose only sins were wanting to be free of opression,to be treated as human being,fighting for their stolen lands to be returned as many had been renderd homeless or displaced,wanted their stolen God given rights returned, wanted not to be hunted like wild antelopes with hunting rifle for fun,they fought to to stop the rapes of their daughters and wives.More shocking is that women MauMau detaines were given the same brutal treated just as the men , hard labours,their children were mostly murderd or starved to death the forced to bury the in pits around the prison compounds their children who they were detaineed with,and sexual abuse meted on them which is to a sane mind impossible even to imagine.Detainees castrations, mass murders,being sodomised ,the senseless beatings, starvation to death are just some of the hell the Mau Mau detainees routinely were subjected to leading some to commit suicide after years of torture .Its a story of high level corruption, where the detainee mistreatments are kept as top secret,a conspiracy by the colonial gorverment while telling the outside world how gentlemanly the detainees were treated.This was happening thereafter the formation of the United nations in 1947,at lest 5 years later after new international laws had been laid out following the lessons learned after the second world war experience ,such as human rights rights laws ,the formations of international organs to oversee the mechanisims of human rights .Yet the book is taking as to the mid fifties and all forms of human rights were being violated with impunity in the detention centers,neccesiating the colonial adminstration in Kenya in fear of a backlash from the international community if this gross human rights violations leaked to deceive the whole world including their own Gorverment in London that prisoners were treated in the most humane way!!!.The book mentions about the heated debates in the house of commons between the majority and the opposition about the subject matter as slowly the truth started to leak out,in the most creative,heroic.From the detention centers spread all over Kenya collectively dubed as the "pipeline" sytem, letters were brilliantly smuggled out by Mau Mau detainees at a great risk to their lives ,sent to some major newspapers in England who started to publish them vividly detailing the horifying details of life in detention as described by the prisoners.This publications shocked the ordinary English people and embarrassing the gorverment which always told its citizens that their colonies were the best run not bably run like others of others empires therefore it denied by claiming that the publications were exagerations .More letter would later reach this newspapers who would publish this new horror.Its this newpaer publications that triggered heated debates in the English parliament,the opposition condemned them sharply critising the gorverment of cover ups demanding that inquiries be carried out.Commisions of inquiries were formed to carry out inverstigattions ,with london even sending some officials to tour detention centers in Kenya.But at the end of the day nothing ever was done.Not until the events of the world famous "Hola Massacre" of 1959 at hola detention center was action taken after the incident leaked out to the whole world.It was shocking.The incident became a confirmation of what the detainees had written and was published severaly as true and that meant the colonial establishment had all along engaged to cover up their conspiracy all along and denied it while they had been the perpetrators .Now the world knew what had transpired on that fateful day,the brutality leading to the mass murder of detainees by colonial authorities ,this forced drastic changes with the process of decolonization being launched starting in 1960 to prepare Kenya for independence in 3 years time.This changing he course of colonial rule in Kenya and Afrca for ever.Jomo Kenyatta was released from detention in 1961 with kenya gaining internal self rule on June 1st 1963 with Jomo Kenyatta as the first Prime minister.One year later on December 12 1964 Kenya fully Independence gaining republican status with Jomo Kenyata at old age of 74 years became the first President and the Founding Father of the new African independent nation of Kenya after 71 years of colonial rule.I stop there buy it and read on.

This was one of the hardest book that I ever read, even though it was well written and interesting. I persisted since I was going to lead Healing from War and Genocide workshops in Nigeria and Kenya in May 2017 for Black Africans from about 17 different countries. The book provided me with very valuable information about the history of Kenya.The history was very disturbing to read. After all this happened after the Nazi genocide of the Jews of Europe and was committed by the British government with the knowledge and collusion of the leaders of the Conservative party. The stories of murder, rape, and torture, and forced evacuation of their homes and villages, were confirmed when I listened to the stories of about a dozen elders [men and women ages 80 to 106] while I was in Kenya.I do have one complaint about the book. Professor Elkins only uses the word "genocide" once to describe the British actions in Kenya. I wrote to her asking why, but did not receive an answer. From my perspective what Elkins describes fits the definition of genocide from the U.N.: killing members of the group; causing them serious bodily or mental harm; deliberately inflicting on them conditions calculated to bring about the group’s physical destruction; imposing measures to prevent births within the group; forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. (adapted from the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on December 9, 1948).Read the book and you can decide.

Review -Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain's Gulag in Kenya"Mau Mau: The Kenyan Emergency" by Peter Baxter is a very clean, very nice and respectable report on the official actions of the British governmental officials during the years 1950 - 1060. The detail of the official actions of the government are well laid out. The names and personalities of the Kenyan governors and others in power are nicely laid out. Peter Baxter was born in Kenya, now lives in the US, and writes extensively of African history, especially the wars of liberation 1950 - 1980.But, reading this at the same time as reading "Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain's Gulag in Kenya" by Caroline Elkins, a Harvard Graduate Student, the difference in the sides of the story told is amazing. Baxter briefly mentions brutality and mental illness, and how the majority of the deaths were in his account black on black. Baxter mentions the pipeline of detainees and forced labor but does not delve into the horrors of these camps like Elkins does. Baxter makes brief reference to the racism and immorality of the white settlers. Elkins remarks on a Nairobi social club frequently visited by the settlers in which on entrance the members were obliged by their own rules to switch partners and rooms were provided for "entertainment." The screenings of all blacks in Nairobi for Mau Mau sympathy and aid, Operation Anvil, is mentioned in both books. Baxter merely states the men and many women were taken to detainee camps outside the city. Elkins talks of beatings, torture, castration, starvation, exposure to elements and other mistreatment of the blacks taken off the street on the merest whiff of evidence, suspicion, or retaliation that occurred in those detention camps.I also have read Peter Hewitt's personal memoirs "Kenya Cowboy" of his time in the Kenyan Police Force during this same period. Hewitt's account is a retelling of his personal experiences and not of the other problems about in Kenyan at that time. But Baxter quotes Hewitt at length in support of his outlining of the official government actions. Hewitt's account also testifies to the physical state of the Mau Mau after 1955, which was horrible. Hewitt's account is very personal as to his actions and experiences. Hewitt entered Kenya a few short months after the Ruck Massacre, and about the same time as the Lari Massacre. Hewitt does not go into the pipeline or other aspects of the Emergency.The legends in history classes that adhere to the Mau Mau "emergency" are of vague "horrible deeds" done by 1) the Mau Mau, 2) the British officials and army and 3) the loyalists Kikuyu. While Elkins writes with all the indignation of a person who finds her heroes have clay feet, Baxter writes to justify and minimize the episodes of the actual history. I suspect the truth is somewhere in the middle. Both Baxter and Elkins mention the plethora of books on the wars of African Liberation and how they vary in content. Thus one has to consider the violence and virulence of the period and how both sides and the later researchers are all still pushing their points of view. Baxter's book is a good outline of the official actions of the British. Elkins book is researched among the Kikuyu people and well reflects their recollections and oral traditions. Aside from the similarity of the names of people and places and dates, one would not think one was reading of the same people, place and period.

great read

Read this and know the soul of your own nation Britons. The price Africans paid for our so called civilising influence. A repulsive, barbaric occupation. Displacing a whole people. Killing and torturing without mercy. Genocide by any serious definition. All in the name of Queen Elizabeth II of England. The wrong side won. Shame on Kenya. So many still wretched to this day. Shame on us.

Ich habe das Buch gelesen weil mich der Roman "Schatten des Schwurs" darauf aufmerksam gemacht hat.Unglaublich was die Englaender dort aufgefuehrt haben. Bei meinen zahlreichen England Besuchen wurde ich als Oesterreicher nicht erst einmal abwertend als "Sohn Hitlers" angesprochen. Danke Frau Elkins, dass sie in muehevoller Kleinarbeit - die Englaender haben fast alle Akten vernichtet, bevor sie sich aus Kenya zurueckgezogen hatten - die Geschichte wieder zurechtgebogen haben.

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pleased with the product. arrived on time. thanks