Mau Mau’s Children: The Making of Kenya’s Postcolonial Elite

Acknowledgments

xxiii Ac­ knowl­ edg­ ments Both in­ di­ vid­ u­ als and in­ sti­ tu­ tions have as­ sisted in bring­ ing this book to com­ ple­ tion. Fore­ most among them have been my for­ mer Ken­ yan stu­ dents who have been my pri­ mary re­ search sub­ jects. Of ­ course back in 1963, I did not know how the three ­ classes I would teach at Gia­ kanja Sec­ on­ dary ­ School would so pro­ foundly af­ fect the rest of my life. It was not long, how­ ever, be­ fore they began to re­ veal their lives of strug­ gle and their striv­ ing for a bet­ ter fu­ ture. This ­ can-do ­ spirit in­ spired me and kin­ dled my inter­ est in ­ African his­ tory, which I later pur­ sued in grad­ u­ ate­ school and there­ af­ ter as a col­ lege pro­ fes­ sor. But I mark the be­ gin­ ning of my under­ stand­ ing of ­ African cul­ tures and peo­ ples, es­ pe­ cially of rural life dur­ ing the era of co­ lo­ nial rule, to my as­ so­ ci­ a­ tion with these stu­ dents all those years ago. I often won­ dered what their adult lives were like. I began to for­ mu­ late a re­ search pro­ ject that would ad­ dress that idea, one that even­ tu­ ally took me back to Kenya in 1995. Not sur­ pris­ ingly, they wel­ comed me back, intro­ duced me to their fam­ i­ lies, gave me hos­ pi­ tal­ ity and friend­ ship, and above all ­ agreed to be inter­ viewed. With pro­ found grat­ i­ tude, I ded­ i­ cate this book to them, which could not have been writ­ ten with­ out their kind­ ness and coop­ er­ a­ tion. The Kenya Na­ tional ­ Archives has also been in­ stru­ men­ tal in the suc­ cess of this pro­ ject, es­ pe­ cially in mak­ ing avail­ able ma­ te­ rial con­ cern­ ing the Mau Mau Re­ bel­ lion and Ken­ yan ed­ u­ ca­ tion. Their li­ brary also gave me ac­ cess to use­ ful govern­ ment pub­ li­ ca­ tions. I give my ­ thanks to the staff, es­ pe­ cially to Rich­ ard Am­ bani, Pe­ ter­ son Ki­ thuka, Grace Es­ i­ romo, and Evan­ son Kiiru. ­ Thanks also to the staff at ­ Rhodes House Li­ brary, Ox­ ford, U.K., for help with their man­ u­ scripts col­ lec­ tion. Oth­ ers who gave un­ stint­ ingly of their ex­ per­ tise in­ clude Tom Spear, who ­ helped shape this book in large and small ways, in­ clud­ ing the xxiv Acknowledgments con­ tri­ bu­ tion of an il­ lu­ mi­ nat­ ing fore­ word, and Rob­ ert ­ Strayer, whose as­ sis­ tance and en­ cour­ age­ ment en­ a­ bled me to take my ideas for this book to their next level of de­ vel­ op­ ment. I give my sin­ cere ­ thanks to both of them. ­ Thanks also go to Jan Van­ sina and David He­ nige, whose ad­ vice gave di­ rec­ tion to my ear­ li­ est ideas about this pro­ ject. My ­ thanks also go to the De­ part­ ment of His­ tory at the Uni­ ver­ sity of Nai­ robi, es­ pe­ cially to Dr. Henry Mu­ toro, the chair of the de­ part­ ment. I am in­ debted to Dr. Shi­ rin Walji for her kind offer of a place to stay in Nai­ robi, which en­ a­ bled me to use that city, cru­ cial to my re­ search, as my pri­ mary base of op­ er­ a­ tions. I also wish to thank my as­ sist­ ants Do­ reen Ka­ thure and Pau­ line Wa­ tene for their care­ ful transcrip­ tion of my inter­ views. To my col­ leagues at Con­ cor­ dia Col­ lege in Moor­ head, es­ pe­ cially those in the De­ part­ ment of His­ tory and Peter Hovde, whose coun­ sel en­ cour­ aged me to con­ tinue on after my first draft, I offer my sin­ cere grat­ i­ tude. ­ Thanks also to Ju­ dith Sin­ clair for her care­ ful as­ sis­ tance with the many tasks in­ volved in the final prep­ ar­ a­ tion of the man­ u­ script. I also wish to thank Con­ cor­ dia Col­ lege for award­ ing me sab­ bat­ i­ cals for the re­ search...