''Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain's Gulag in Kenya'', published in the
UK as ''Britain's Gulag: The Brutal End of Empire in Kenya'', is a 2005 nonfiction book written by
Caroline Elkins and published by
Henry Holt. It won the 2006
Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction
The Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction is one of the seven American Pulitzer Prizes that are awarded annually for the "Letters, Drama, and Music" category. The award is given to a nonfiction book written by an American author and published du ...
.
Overview
The book describes how, after
Operation Anvil, the
British colonial government in
Kenya
Kenya, officially the Republic of Kenya, is a country located in East Africa. With an estimated population of more than 52.4 million as of mid-2024, Kenya is the 27th-most-populous country in the world and the 7th most populous in Africa. ...
turned increasingly to
mass detention as a means to suppress the
Mau Mau Uprising
The Mau Mau rebellion (1952–1960), also known as the Mau Mau uprising, Mau Mau revolt, or Kenya Emergency, was a war in the British Kenya Colony (1920–1963) between the Kenya Land and Freedom Army (KLFA), also known as the Mau Mau, and the ...
. Elkins details the establishment and running of the detention camps, the torture and abuse that took place there, and the attempts by the British to destroy records on the eve of Kenya's independence, after having covered up such incidents as the
Hola massacre.
This book was also released under the title ''Britain's Gulag: The Brutal End of Empire in Kenya'', published by
Jonathan Cape
Jonathan Cape is a British publishing firm headquartered in London and founded in 1921 by Herbert Jonathan Cape, who was head of the firm until his death.
Cape and his business partner Wren Howard (1893–1968) set up the publishing house in ...
in 2005.
Bibliography
''Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain's Gulag in Kenya'', Henry Holt/Jonathan Cape, 2005,
References
Further reading
*
*Anderson, D.M. (2015). â
Guilty Secrets: Deceit, Denial, and the Discovery of Kenya’s ‘Migrated Archive’€³. ''
History Workshop Journal
The ''History Workshop Journal'' is a British academic history journal published by Oxford University Press. ''History Workshop'' was founded in 1976 by Raphael Samuel and others involved in the History Workshop movement. Originally sub-titled " ...
'' 80, 142–160.
*Parry Marc.
Uncovering the brutal truth about the British empire(18 August 2016), ''
The Guardian
''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...
''.
External links
*
Pulitzer Prize for General Nonfiction–winning works
2005 non-fiction books
Books about the British Empire
History books about Kenya
Mau Mau rebellion
Kenya Colony
Henry Holt and Company books
{{kenya-hist-stub