John Lonsdale
Emeritus Professor of Modern African History
Book Recommendations:
Recommended by John Lonsdale
“This is the first full history of Kenya's half-century of independence. And it is more than that. Hornsby roots independent Kenya's problems in its many colonial crises, particularly the brutally divisive Mau Mau war. Since then Kenya has experienced rapid change, not least its explosive population growth, and crises, often resolved, at least temporarily, by illegal government action. But the underlying continuities are extraordinary. Hornsby shows how Kenya's most recent tragedy, the killings and evictions that followed the 2007 general election, can be traced back to the political deals of decolonisation. To explain the ambiguities in the Kenyan nation and state is not easy. But with great thoroughness, edged with sometimes startling insight, Hornsby has done just that.” (from Amazon)
by Charles Hornsby·You?
by Charles Hornsby·You?
Since independence in 1963, Kenya has survived nearly five decades as a functioning nation-state, with regular elections, its borders intact, and without experiencing war or military rule. However, Kenya's independence has always been circumscribed by its failure to transcend its colonial past: its governments have failed to achieve adequate living conditions for most of its citizens and its politics have been fraught with controversy - illustrated most recently by the post-election protests and violence in 2007. The decisions of the early years of independence, and the acts of its leaders in the decades since - from Jomo Kenyatta, Tom Mboya, and Oginga Odinga to Daniel arap Moi and Mwai Kibaki - have changed the country's path in unpredictable ways, but key themes of conflicts remain: over land, tribalism - including the simmering Kikuyu-Luo rivalries - money, power, national autonomy, and the distribution of resources. The political elite's endless struggle for access to state resources has damaged Kenya's economy and the political exploitation of ethnicity still threatens the country's stability. In this definitive new history, Charles Hornsby demonstrates how independent Kenya's politics have been dominated by a struggle to deliver security, impartiality, efficiency, and growth, but how the legacies of the past have continued to undermine their achievement, making the long-term future of Kenya far from certain.
Recommended by John Lonsdale
“In this newly researched book Dr Angelo persuasively enters into the controversies surrounding the first Kenyatta's presidency, to portray it as a power created by a political elite who had no authority other than his peculiarly enigmatic charisma and who then exploited it in their own self-interest, with an eye to insuring their privileges against the uncertain future that lay ahead without him.” (from Amazon)
by Anaïs Angelo·You?
by Anaïs Angelo·You?
In December 1963, Kenya formally declared its independence yet it would take a year of intense negotiations for it to transform into a presidential republic, with Jomo Kenyatta as its first president. Archival records of the independence negotiations, however, reveal that neither the British colonial authorities nor the Kenyan political elite foresaw the formation of a presidential regime that granted one man almost limitless executive powers. Even fewer expected Jomo Kenyatta to remain president until his death in 1978. Power and the Presidency in Kenya reconstructs Kenyatta's political biography, exploring the links between his ability to emerge as an uncontested leader and the deeper colonial and postcolonial history of the country. In describing Kenyatta's presidential style as discreet and distant, Angelo shows how the burning issues of land decolonisation, the increasing centralisation of executive powers and the repression of political oppositions shaped Kenyatta's politics. Telling the story of state building through political biography, Angelo reveals how historical contingency and structural developments shaped both a man and an institution - the president and the presidency.