Mau Mau and Kenya: An Analysis of a Peasant Revolt (Blacks in the Diaspora) - Hardcover

Maloba, Wunyabari O.

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0253336643 ISBN 13: 9780253336644

Publisher: Indiana Univ Pr, 1993

Synopsis

Mau Mau and Kenya widens the debate about the Mau Mau revolt and adds an African voice to the examination and interpretation of an important event in African history. Wunyabari Maloba traces this unique peasant revolt against British colonialism offering a fresh look at a movement that has been "reinvented" by ideologues on the Left and Right in postcolonial Kenya. Was Mau Mau a national effort or an ethnic outburst? What were its political aims? Maloba describes the Mau Mau legacy, concentrating on three issues: participants and their differing ideologies; relationships between the revolt and the conventional party politics of the Kenya African Union; and the impact of Mau Mau on decolonization in Kenya. Maloba argues that Mau Mau's various factions disagreed over aims and objectives, and that this lack of a cohesive revolutionary ideology influenced the shape and destiny of the revolt. He compares Mau Mau, as an anti-colonial peasant movement, to European and Third World revolutionary movements. In placing the Mau Mau rebellion within the framework of theoretical debates about social movements, Maloba demonstrates that its aim, like that of other peasant revolts, was the overthrow of colonial domination and the attainment of national independence. Mau Mau and Kenya makes a significant contribution to postwar Kenyan historiography.

About this title

Review:

Anyone looking for an up-to-date comprehensive, and accessible single-volume text to introduce the Mau Mau movement and its part in Kenya's nationalism and independence to an undergraduate readership need look no further. --International Journal of Historical Studies

The book stands very well as an overview. Instructors prescribing preliminary reading for classes studying the conflicts of decolonization should ensure that it is on their lists. --Conflict Quarterly

From the Back Cover:

This is a study of one of the more remarkable nationalist peasant revolts against British colonialism in Africa. As a nationalist revolutionary movement, Mau Mau has remained remarkably difficult to comprehend. This study has been undertaken with the aim of not only clarifying but also explaining the varied contradictory components of this revolt.

About this edition

• Publisher: Indiana Univ Pr
• Publication date: 1993
• ISBN 10: 0253336643
• ISBN 13: 9780253336644
• Binding: Hardcover