By Bruce Berman
“The book has great strengths. As a political scientist turned historian, Berman has a wide grasp of theories of the state. His recognition that contradiction was fundamental to colonialism allows him to write about people, often with inarticulate assumptions and concerns, struggling to survive and prosper in a social, economic and political environment that was being rapidly and unpredictably changed by the very forces which the state sought to manage and contain.”
Richard Miller, Bucknell University, Journal of African History
This history of the political economy of Kenya is the first full length study of the development of the colonial state in Africa.
Professor Berman argues that the colonial state was shaped by the contradictions between maintaining effective political control with limited coercive force and ensuring the profitable articulation of metropolitan and settler capitalism with African societies.
This dialectic of domination resulted in both the uneven transformation of indigenous societies and in the reconstruction of administrative control in the inter-war period.
The study traces the evolution of the colonial state from its skeletal beginnings in the 1890s to the complex bureaucracy of the post-1945 era which managed the growing integration of the colony with international capital. These contradictions led to the political crisis of the Mau Mau emergency in 1952 and to the undermining of the colonial state.
The book is based on extensive primary sources including numerous interviews with Kenyan and British participants. The analysis moves from the micro-level of the relationship of the District Commissioners and the African population to the macro-level of the state and the political economy of colonialism.
Professor Berman uses the case of Kenya to make a sophisticated contribution to the theory of the state and to the understanding of the dynamics of the development of modern African political and economic institutions.
Bruce Berman is a professor of political studies at Queen's University, Ontario. More info →
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978-0-8214-0994-7
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Release date: January 1990
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Release date: January 1990
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Decolonization and Independence in Kenya, 1940–1993
Edited by B. A. Ogot and W. R. Ochieng
This is a sharply observed assessment of the history of the last half century by a distinguished group of historians of Kenya. At the same time the book is a courageous reflection in the dilemmas of African nationhood.Professor B. A. Ogot says:“The main purpose of the book is to show that decolonization does not only mean the transfer of alien power to sovereign nationhood; it must also entail the liberation of the worlds of spirit and culture, as well as economics and politics.“The
African History · Colonialism and Decolonization · African Studies · Kenya
Unhappy Valley
Conflict in Kenya and Africa - Books One and Two
By Bruce Berman and John Lonsdale
This long-awaited book is a considerable revision in the understanding of the history of colonial Kenya and, more widely, colonialism in Africa. There is a substantial amount of new work and this is interlocked with shared areas of concern that the authors have been exploring since 1976.The authors investigate major themes.
African Studies · Kikuyu · Mau Mau · Africa · Eastern Africa · Kenya · History · African History · Sociology · Violence in Society
Multi-Party Politics in Kenya
The Kenyatta and Moi States and the Triumph of the System in the 1992 Election
By David Throup and Charles Hornsby
This book uses the Kenyan political system to address issues relevant to recent political developments throughout Africa.The authors analyze the construction of the Moi state since 1978. They show the marginalization of Kikuyu interests as the political economy of Kenya has been reconstructed to benefit President Moi’s Kalenjin people and their allies. Mounting Kikuyu dissatisfaction led to the growth of demands for multi-party democracy.The
Political Science, Africa · Kenya · African Studies · Kikuyu
