Kenyatta (Routledge Revivals)

Originally published in 1972 and as a second edition in 1979, this widely acclaimed biography of Africa’s first modern statesman tells the story of Kenyatta’s extraordinary and enigmatic career.It is the story of a life punctuated by dramatic twists of fortune which closely reflects Africa’s emergence from colonial rule.In the preparation of this book Jeremy Murray-Brown used a variety of unpublished sources.He pieces together the background of Kenyatta’s childhood as a ‘mission boy’ in the days when Nairobi was a raw frontier settlement; of his way of life as a young ‘de-tribalized’ African in the 1920s; of his role in the controversy regarding female circumcision; his sixteen years in Britain; his visits to Russia between the wars; his trial and long years in a desert prison charged with managing Mau Mau. The result is a rounded portrait and its objective approach to the enigmas which have surrounded the African leader places him firmly in his historical context.Set against the backg