#  Elkins, Carolyn - Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain's Gulag in Kenya  

 





December 01, 2011

 

 

   ![elkins_book.jpg](/sites/g/files/omnuum9191/files/styles/hwp_1_1__360x360_scale/public/history_winter_reading_list/files/elkins_book.jpg?itok=vPqOfQln) 

 

**Carolyn Elkins**. Holt Paperbacks, 2005  
[Publisher's Link](http://us.macmillan.com/imperialreckoning/carolineelkins) As part of the Allied forces, thousands of Kenyans fought alongside the British in World War II. But just a few years after the defeat of Hitler, the British colonial government detained nearly the entire population of Kenya's largest ethnic minority, the Kikuyu-some one and a half million people. The compelling story of the system of prisons and work camps where thousands met their deaths has remained largely untold-the victim of a determined effort by the British to destroy all official records of their attempts to stop the Mau Mau uprising, the Kikuyu people's ultimately successful bid for Kenyan independence.

Sort      ![elkins.1.jpg](/sites/g/files/omnuum9191/files/styles/hwp_1_1__360x360_scale/public/history_winter_reading_list/files/elkins.1.jpg?itok=q4mVk8UC) 

 

 

  **[Caroline Elkins](http://history.fas.harvard.edu/people/caroline-elkins)** **Professor of History and African and African American Studies, Director of the Harvard Center for African Studies** Professor Elkins's first book, Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain's Gulag in Kenya, was awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction. It was also selected as one of the Economist's best history books for 2005, was a New York Times editor's choice, and was a finalist for the Lionel Gelber Award. She and her research were also the subjects of a 2002 BBC documentary titled, Kenya: White Terror, which was awarded the International Committee of the Red Cross Award at the Monte Carlos Film Festival. Professor Elkins is a contributor to The New York Times Book Review, The Atlantic, and The New Republic.  [Read more...](http://history.fas.harvard.edu/people/caroline-elkins) 

 





 

 

 



 

 

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