• A fascinating history of the conflict that set the stage for Kenyan independence

The Second World War forever altered the complexion of the British Empire. From Cyprus to Malaya, from Borneo to Suez, the dominoes began to fall within a decade of peace in Europe. Africa in the late 1940s and 1950s was energised by the grant of independence to India, and the emergence of a credible indigenous intellectual and political caste that was poised to inherit control from the waning European imperial powers. The British on the whole managed to disengage from Africa with a minimum of ill feeling and violence, conceding power in the Gold Coast, Nigeria and Sierra Leone under an orderly constitutional process, and engaging only in the suppression of civil disturbances in Nyasaland and Northern Rhodesia as the practicalities of a political handover were negotiated.

In Kenya, however, matters were different. A vociferous local settler lobby had accrued significant economic and political authority under a local legislature, coupled with the fact that much familial pressure could be brought to bear in Whitehall by British settlers of wealth and influence, most of whom were utterly irreconciled to the notion of any kind of political handover. Mau Mau was less than a liberation movement, but much more than a mere civil disturbance. Its historic importance is based primarily on the fact that the Mau Mau campaign was one of the first violent confrontations in sub-Saharan Africa to take place over the question of the self-determination of the masses. It also epitomised the quandary suffered by the white settler communities of Africa who had been promised utopia in an earlier century, only to be confronted in a post-war world by the completely unexpected reality of black political aspiration.

This book journeys through the birth of British East Africa as a settled territory of the Empire, and the inevitable politics of confrontation that emerged from the unequal distribution of resources and power.

Also By This Author

France in Centrafrique From Bokassa and Operation Barracude to the days of EUFOR "An incisive look at French influence in Central Africa." Lt-Col Robert Brown, Soldier of Fortune magazine France in Centrafrique explores the pre- and post-colonial history of the Republic of Centr... (paperback)

SAAF’s Border War The South African Air Force in Combat 1966-89 • Baxter brings to life the squadrons and aviators that fought in both counter-insurgency and conventional warfare roles in this comprehensive account South African Mirages and Cuban MiG-21s dogfight... (Paperback)

Selous Scouts Rhodesian Counter-Insurgency Specialists "Undoubtedly one of the most, if not the most, effective counter-insurgency units in the history of warfare" - Lt-Col Robert Brown, Soldier of Fortune Magazine "Its members consisted of some of the ... (paperback)