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Article: In cold blood.(Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain's Gulag in Kenya)(Histories of the Hanged: The Dirty War in Kenya and the End of Empire)(Book Review)
- Article from:
- The Nation
- Article date:
- February 21, 2005
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2005 The Nation Company L.P. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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IMPERIAL RECKONING: The Untold Story of Britain's Gulag in Kenya. By Caroline Elkins. Holt. 475 pp. $27.50.
HISTORIES OF THE HANGED: The Dirty War in Kenya and the End of Empire. By David Anderson. Norton. 406 pp. $25.95.
In the 1950s in Kenya, British settlers lived in terror of an "evil" that was sweeping the country, threatening to wipe out their aristocratic enclave: Mau Mau. In reports to the Home Office, colonial authorities described a satanic primitive religion that was turning previously content and compliant servants and laborers into bloodthirsty butchers wreaking havoc across the land.
But for Africans, Mau Mau was the sound of ...