Defeating Mau Mau, Creating Kenya: Counterinsurgency, Civil War, and Decolonization

by Daniel Branch

This book details the devastating Mau Mau civil war fought in Kenya during the 1950s and the legacies of that conflict for the post-colonial state. As many Kikuyu fought with the colonial government as loyalists joined the Mau Mau rebellion. Focusing on the role of those loyalists, the book examines the ways in which residents of the country’s Central Highlands sought to navigate a path through the bloodshed and uncertainty of civil war. It explores the instrumental use of violence, changes to allegiances, and the ways in which cleavages created by the war informed local politics for decades after the conflict’s conclusion. Moreover, the book moves toward a more nuanced understanding of the realities and effects of counterinsurgency warfare. Based on archival research in Kenya and the United Kingdom and insights from literature from across the social sciences, the book reconstructs the dilemmas facing members of society at war with itself and its colonial ruler.

Genres: History, Africa, Kenya, Politics, Military History, Eastern Africa

278 pages, Paperback

First published September 7, 2009

Reviews

[Daniel]

Daniel Branch, professor of African History at the University of Warwick, has become one of my favorite writers on the history of Kenya. Believe it or not, it's a highly enjoyable read, making complex issues understandable, and couching larger themes in terrific narratives. This book looks at the often ignored dynamic at play in those Africans who chose to fight with the British (the "loyalists") against their fellow African Mau Mau fighters. This book is a must read for classes on the history of Kenya and Kenya's pre-independence fighting - but is one I strongly recommend to anyone interested in the dynamics of violence in Kenya and East Africa.

[Andrea]

Branch seeks to add another layer to understanding of the Mau Mau conflict by focusing on the importance of "loyalist" or those Kikuyu who were not part of Mau Mau. The interaction of local politics with the colonial govts response to Mau Mau created rifts in Kikuyu society and a redistribution of resources in Central Kenya that affected the eventual shape of postcolonial law and economy and that is still affecting Kenyan politics today.

[Philip]

It's been interesting to draw comparisons, as a reader, to the dynamics of the Syrian civil war.

That said, Brand overstates the significance of the book's main thesis, that "the cycles of violence that took hold created entirely new historical trajectories that had little to do with the grievances that cultivated conditions in which the MM insurgency took hold."

Brand convincingly argues that violence is a catalyst to schisms as much as it is a product of them. "The exposure of individuals of violence forced Kikuyu to adopt essentialized identifies as they sought protection or revenge." And actors, especially the state, manipulate this reality to fuel their insurgency and counterinsurgency campaigns. This is particularly resonant today as we try to understand the Syria war.

That is not to say that war is ahistorical, that scholars can divorce it from its historical context. Brand does a sufficient job anchoring the rebellion to the pre-war dynamics.

But did the dynamics of violence create "entirely new historical trajectories"? That's not sufficiently demonstrated. In the book's own accounting, post-war Kenyan politics looks quite a lot like pre-war politics - divided over questions of land, capitalism, and the moral economy.