BRITAIN'S GULAG Histories
of
the
Hanged:
Britain's
Dirty
War
in
Kenya
and
the
End
of
Empire. By DAVID ANDERSON. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 2005. Pp. viii+406 (ISBN 0-297-84719-8). Britain's
Gulag:
The
Brutal
End
of
Empire
in
Kenya. By CAROLINE ELKINS (London: Jonathan Cape, 2005). Pp. xiv+475. £20 (ISBN 0-224-07363-X).
BETHWELL A. OGOT a1
a1 Moi University and Maseno University
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GULAG is the Russian acronym for the Chief Administration of Corrective Labour Camps made famous and permanently inscribed into the English vocabulary through the genius of Alexander Solzhenitsyn in his classic, The
Gulag
Archipelago
1918–1956:
An
Experiment
in
Literary
Investigation, published in 1974. The author used the testimony of 227 survivors as well as recollections of his own 11 years of labour camps and exiles. The Archipelago of Solzhenitsyn's work is that system of secret police installations, camp prisons, transit centers, communication facilities, transport systems and espionage organizations which, in his view, was a state within a state holding about 15 million people. The book shows how ordinary people, who are referred to by their own names, can be turned into planners and executives of oppression, brutality and torture.
(Published Online December 9 2005)
Key Words: Kenya; colonial; decolonization; postcolonial; human rights; independence wars; nationalism; sources; violence.
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