Mau Mau Crucible of War is a study of the social and cultural history of the mentalité of struggle in Kenya, which reached a high water mark during the Mau Mau war of the 1950s, but which continues to resonate in Kenya today in the ongoing demand for a decent standard of living and social justice for all. This work catalyzes intellectual debate in various disciplines regarding not just the evolution of the Kenyan state, but also, the state in Africa. It not only engages historians of colonial and postcolonial economic and political history, but also sociologists, anthropologists, political scientists, and those who study personality and social branches of psychology, postcolonialism and postmodernity, social movements, armed conflict specialists, and conflict resolution analysts.

[T]here is much to be admired in this ambitious and unconventional approach. Githuku provides a richly detailed and passionately argued study that will be of interest to anyone who seeks to understand the making of the postcolonial state in Kenya and the continuing tensions and disaffections that lurk just beneath the surface of its modern political life. * The International Journal Of African Studies *
[This book] offers prospective readers a richly detailed analysis of the ways in which unresolved historical problems and injustices stemming from colonialism continue to haunt contemporary Kenya. * African Affairs *
Nicholas Githuku’s history confronts [Kenya’s] violence and its political effects head on. He asks new questions about Kenya’s history, quotes previously unexamined evidence, and offers his readers important new insights. In all this he challenges his fellow Kenyans to join him in resurrecting their local historiography. -- John Lonsdale, Trinity College, Cambridge
To those who contend that the history of the colonial period is no longer of much consequence in recent developments and trends in Kenya and other parts of Africa, moreover, this book provides a detailed and powerful refutation. -- Robert M. Maxon, West Virginia University
All in all, Githuku has not just opened a window into colonial and post-colonial Kenyan experiences; he has painted a highly convincing and engaging tableau of a hundred years of Kenyan history in which every aspect of the struggle for Uhuru was brought together to show that the struggle has not just taken place in the ‘forest,’ and rural parts but also in urban Kenya. He brings together both ordinary Kenyans as well as radicals who were all fighting to make sure that Uhuru does not remain elusive to them forever. * Stichproben – Vienna Journal of African Studies *

Nicholas Kariuki Githuku is assistant professor of African history at York College, CUNY.