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A Brief Tour of the Buildings of Nair...
For anyone interested in learning about the history of architecture of Nairobi, this book provides a great overview of the city's most prominent buildings, whose histories span from the British Occupation to the modern era.
Foreword by Prof. Wangari Maathai.
Descriptions and color photographs of over 72 buildings in the Central Business District, Upper Hill and other areas. Includes maps, alphabetical index, chronological index and bibliography.
My Blood Not for Sale by Muthoni Liki...
Brief Summary
Muthoni Likimani’s latest book, My Blood Not for Sale, is a blistering indictment of the scourge of human trafficking in modern times.
It evokes feelings of horror at the various manifestations of modern slavery, which essentially re-enacts the heart-wrenching ordeal that Sarah Baarman underwent in the 19th century.
The story of the Southern African woman Sarah Baartman, exported to Europe for public display, is one of the most horrendous instances of human trafficking.
The sad story typifies the perpetual victimhood of people of African descent from antiquity to modernity. Sarah Baartman, of Khoikhoi or Hottentot origin, was lured with false promises of prosperity and plucked from her ancestral home in South Africa in 1810 and shipped to England, where she was put on display in freak shows. Why? Her physical features piqued the European gaze and earned her the tag Hottentont Venus, because in the European imagination, she was very unlike the women of the civilized Western world. She was displayed on stage in a cage in shows that earned her European captors a colossal amount of money.
She was a slave. All efforts to have her released from the hands of her inhuman and inhumane captors fell flat. She would later be moved to France, where she was made an object of medical and scientific research to satiate a curious European fascination with African female sexuality.
But the Hottentot Venus remained a slave in life and death as well. Upon her death, her genitalia, skeleton and brain were put on display in a museum.
Kenya: A Prison Notebook by Maina wa ...
Brief Summary
Maina wa Kinyatti is one of Kenya’s progressive historians. In June 1982, he was arrested by the Kenyan authoritarian regime, charged with possession of seditious literature and imprisoned.
He suffered for six-and-a-half years in the hands of his brutal captors. He was repeatedly held in solitary confinement and was constantly insulted and beaten.
He was tortured by vermin, untreated diseases, hunger and loneliness. But he remained defiant, his courage and spirit unbroken.
The illusion of power by GG Kariuki
The Illusion of Power: Reflections on Fifty Years in Kenya Politics.
Kariki's political participation dates from 1952, when he pledged an oath to the allegiance of the Gikuyu tribe, the Mau Mau movement and the cause of African unity. Post-independence, he gradually progressed to being a political insider, serving in the Kenyan African National Union (KANU) and the Kenyan Government. In 1983 he was expelled from KANU - the only political party.
It is from this outsider-perspective, and in this climate of fear and uncertainty, without the desired freedom of association and access to political colleagues of the period of struggle, that he nevertheless here recounts his experiences of half a century in politics.
He holds the belief that political evolution is inexorable; and that knowledge about, and reflection on the past is the only way of preventing the tragedy of yet another generation repeating that which they condemned in their predecessors.
Unsettled Denial and Belonging Among ...
"In 1963, Kenya gained independence from Britain, ending nearly seventy years of white colonial rule. While tens of thousands of whites relocated outside Kenya for what they hoped would be better prospects, many stayed. Over the past decade, however, protests, scandals, and upheavals have unsettled families with colonial origins, reminding them of the tenuousness of their Kenyan identity. In this book, Janet McIntosh looks at the lives and dilemmas of settler descendants living in post-independence Kenya.
From clinging to a lost colonial identity to embracing a new Kenyan nationality, the public face of white Kenyans has undergone changes fraught with ambiguity. Drawing on fieldwork and interviews, McIntosh focuses on their discourses and narratives, asking: What stories do settler descendants tell about their claims to belong in Kenya? How do they situate themselves vis-a-vis the colonial past and anticolonial sentiment, phrasing and rephrasing their memories and judgments as they seek a position they feel is ethically acceptable?
With her respondents straining to defend their entitlements in the face of mounting Kenyan rhetorics of ancestry and autochthony, McIntosh explores their contradictory and diverse responses: moral double consciousness, aspirations to uplift the nation, ideological blind spots, denial, and self-doubt. Ranging from land rights to language, from romantic intimacy to the African occult, Unsettled offers a unique perspective on whiteness in a postcolonial context and a groundbreaking theory of elite subjectivity
A Railway to Nowhere The Building of ...
Mervyn Hill made a significant contribution to East African studies in his history of the Kenya and Uganda Railway from its conception to the creation of East African Railways and Harbours in 1948. Commissioned in 1942 as a 'plain story' of 'the development of the railway' and published in 1949, 'Permanent Way' has long proved a boon to those interested in the history of Kenya and Uganda.
Hill was however at a great disadvantage when writing the official history, most notably because the operation of the 50-year rule prevented him from consulting official documents in the Public Record Office and elsewhere, with the result that he was largely dependent on material published in Parliamentary Command papers.
Two other serious drawbacks were that war conditions restricted his sources to published works and other material available in East Africa at the time and that many of the books and articles which authors now have access to had yet to be written. The Railway to Nowhere does not suffer from these disadvantages and provides a well-researched, authoritative account coupled with a pictorial appreciation of the construction of the railway in the early years of its operation.
There is no doubt that the construction of the railway was a triumph of human endeavour and resolution over the most daunting obstacles and setbacks: the vision and tenacity of the British government in the face of parliamentary, press and Treasury opposition and criticism; the steadfast leadership of Sir George Whitehouse in coping with an often querulous Foreign Office Committee, and overcoming a series of administrative engineering and personal problems; the inventiveness and skill of surveyor engineers when tackling exceptional professional challenges and the hardiness shown by the working gangs, of all races, in carrying on under adverse conditions of climate and terrain.
Southern Kikuyu Before 1903 Volume 1,...
This is a Limited Second Edition, reprint of the three volume book The Southern Kikuyu- before 1903.
One of the often unnoticed tragedies of an era of technological advance and improving communications is the passing from living memory of customs, language and beliefs as small insular pockets of culture are overtaken by the sweep of civilization.
This impressive book is a complete record of the ways of the Kikuyu people, before and during the period of European influence which accompanied road and railway building and political and economic changes in the late 19th Century. It is the major anthropological achievement of the late L.S.B. Leakey and the culmination of his life-long study of the people among whom he was born and raised. Written in the graceful, readable style characteristic of scholarship in the thirties, it draws on the memories of the Elders whose confidant Dr. Leakey became.
A once rich source of tradition and culture, passed on intact from generation to generation, was in danger of drying up without trace – this study, revised and published now, some forty years after it was first undertaken, will secure this fascinating collection of information for posterity now that all the last inheritors of the old Kikuyu way of life are dead.
Thanks to Dr. Leakey, and to the collaborators who worked on the manuscript after his death, the Kikuyu mores have been set down – from descriptions of the daily activities of the people, digging, planting, harvesting, care of animals, trading, marriage, tribal raiding, dancing and lawgiving, to the customs connected with sex, linked with rites de passage, religious beliefs, magic and medicine. It is a picture of a successful self-regulating community, in which a strict set of rules and punishments established order and enabled the tribe to survive within its environment.
The autonomy of tribal life all over the world is now being eroded, for better or worse. But this well-rounded study, intricate in its mass of detail, yet straightforward in approach, seeks to make no assertions or comparisons with other cultures. It will thus be an important unbiased primary source for social anthropologists, ethnologists and social scientists, as well as being of great value to all those interested in Africa and its history.
The jail bugs by Wahome Mutahi
Its Our Turn to Eat by Michela Wrong
It's Our Turn to Eat: The Story of a Kenyan Whistle-Blower.
When Michela Wrong's Kenyan friend John Githongo appeared one morning on the doorstep of her London flat, it was clear something had gone very wrong in a country regarded until then as one of Africa's few budding success stories.
John's tale is the story of how a brave man came to make a lonely decision with huge ramifications.
An Artist of the Floating World by Ka...
In the face of the misery in his homeland, the artist Masuji Ono was unwilling to devote his art solely to the celebration of physical beauty. Instead, he put his work in the service of the imperialist movement that led Japan into World War II.
Now, as the mature Ono struggles through the aftermath of that war, his memories of his youth and of the "floating world”—the nocturnal world of pleasure, entertainment, and drink—offer him both escape and redemption, even as they punish him for betraying his early promise.
Indicted by society for its defeat and reviled for his past aesthetics, he relives the passage through his personal history that makes him both a hero and a coward but, above all, a human being.
A Textbook on Tax Law in Kenya by Dr ...
The publication’s academic bent makes it an ideal reference manual for advocates, accountants, tax agents, tax consultants and other professionals interacting with tax matters.
Indeed, any professional pursuing a career in tax, including decision-makers, judges, magistrates and Tax Tribunals will find A Text Book on Tax Law in Kenya a useful — if not indispensable — handbook. In it there are numerous examples and references of the tax law in Kenya, and the tax jurisprudence emanating from Kenyan courts and the Tax Appeal Tribunal.
The book is also a handy companion for business owners or any other person seeking to sharpen his or her skills and knowledge of Kenya’s tax law. The 426-page treatise is divided into 18 chapters.
That Dr Kimani is also an advocate of the High Court, a KRA Tax Agent and a certified accountant among others, easily speaks for itself in the book.
The tax expert has quoted substantially from jurisprudence, case studies, and technical documents on his chosen topics. In addition, the book has a rich bibliography on tax matters, making it a tremendously authoritative publication.
Although the book may seem intimidating on first impression, readers will find it well designed and easy to read. The usability is fantastic. However, readers must appreciate that there is a level of language and detail below which some topics may lose their essence if they are simplified further.
The author has gone out of his way to break down every complicated concept he handles by using sections and subsections. He’s thorough in his research and explanations and it helps that he ends each chapter with a conclusion of the main topic.
One of Kenya’s more seasoned accountants, former Finance minister Amos Kimunya, notes that the book "provides a much-needed relief to tax practitioners, tax administrators, tax payers, researchers as well as students by providing a one-stop reference point on the latest developments in taxation law and practice in Kenya”.
The Kenyatta Succession by Joseph Kar...
The Kenyatta Succession by Joseph Karimi & Philip Ochieng
On the day Mzee Jomo Kenyatta died at Mombasa State House, Coast provincial intelligence officer Bart Kibati received a phone call from the PC Eliud Mahihu.
The administrator relayed the sad news to the sleuth and then went ahead to ask him to look for a coffin in which they would transport the head of state’s body to Nairobi. A Kenya Air Force plane was on standby.
Kibati, well aware that if he was seen buying a coffin tongues would start wagging, decided to pull a trick out of his cloak and dagger trade’s rule book. He bought not only one but three coffin - including one for a child for a good measure.
The retired spy chief reveals in his tell-all biography ‘Memoirs of a Spymaster’ that this was not the first time he was involving himself in subterfuge following a high profile death.
Just under a decade earlier he was the provincial director of intelligence when the celebrated Cabinet minister Tom Mboya was assassinated. On the day Mboya’s body was passing through Nakuru, Kibati came up with a hearse decoy.
Memories we lost and other stories by...
This anthology brings together a variety of short stories from Africa and parts of the world. A rigorous and informed selection has ensured that it combines the confidence of The classic's with the freshness that contemporary writers bring to their craft.
This collection is a grain-store of memories that seek to entertain, provoke, empower and educate. The themes are s wide ranging as the authors' backgrounds but they share a common belief — enhancing values and integrity in today's society in an effort to preserve human and social dignity.'
The short story is probably the world's secret weapon in the way that the oral culture is interwoven into the written text, to be enjoyed for education as well as a good read.
Kenya: Through My Fathers Eyes by Sal...
Brief Summary
A limited edition coffee table book featuring the photography of legendary photo-journalist Mohamed "MO" Amin. Only 2,000 copies will ever be printed and each copy is numbered and signed and comes with a Certificate of Authenticity. The book is the first historical book in the world to incorporate Augmented Reality** and features 12 videos within the pages of the book
• KENYA: Through My Father's Eyes
• A coffee table book featuring the photography of legendary photo-journalist Mohamed "MO" Amin
• Features 12 videos within the pages of the book
• Get the book autographed and personalized to you by the author. You will do this by indicating the same on the order comment section or making a follow-up email to us.
• Part of the proceeds from the sale of the book will go to the Young African Leaders Initiative (YALI) to promote leadership on the Continent
** The Augmented Reality videos in this book can be viewed through the HP Reveal App
Step 1: Download the FREE App "HP Reveal" on your Smart Device.
Step 2. Launch the App
Step 3: Press the BLUE Button and Point your device at the cover image of this book to enjoy a rich video content experience. The onscreen cover on this page works as well. Give it a try.
The Cannabis Story The Health Wealth ...
The Cannabis Story is a thought provoking book that reveals the paradox of a pure cannabis plant strain (Kilimanjaro Sativa) reputed as the pinnacle of African Sativa strains. This strain is presently at the center of a lucrative international seed trade in what can only be aptly described as another classical case of Bio-Piracy.
Classified as illegal in its host country, Kenya and majorly regarded as a taboo topic, the book explores the potential economic gains that can be realized from the cannabis plant within a regulated environment.
Aside from the issue of economic gains, this book unpacks in an easy to read language, the origin, history and science of cannabis, its vast medicinal benefits and the prohibition journey. It gives a global perspective on decriminalization and legalization trends and the existing international treaty framework currently facing much tension in consequence of the imminent "weed rush”.
Written for the first time from the perspective of an African legal practitioner, the content will definitely hone the reader’s ability to think more critically on issues involving cannabis likely to have far greater ramifications on a people’s social economic development than previously imagined.
Finally, The Cannabis Story offers valuable insights on the foreseeable paths of a future legal regime for the development of a cannabis grow and manufacturing industry in Kenya. At the end of the read, you can only be confronted with the inevitable question.
Is cannabis the bane of our problems or does it hold the promise of a great future?
Seasons of Hope by David Musila
A teacher, a politician, an administrator, above all a gentle human being who focused on the best for his country, Honorable David Musila, a former senator, has been a dedicated Kenyan throughout his life and continues to be so.
The autobiography, Seasons of Hope – Memoirs of David Musila, is a book full of hopes; it has a capacity to restore faith. An amazingly inspirational story of a person who has encountered enormous odds, heartbreaking challenges, pitfalls, intrigues, disappointments, betrayals, never-ending friendships, forever lessons, key decisions, eye-openers. Musila has seen the darkest hours of his country, and polished his leadership skills over the years.
A young administrator of the age when Kenya gained independence, the times when Kenya was seeing a sunrise, he gained experience and stature from the ranks of District Officer to Provincial Commissioner. It was a critical time for the country, with the history being rewritten, colonial settlers were in retreat, in fear, in anger, in disbelief, for indigenous Kenyans were in charge.
The book delves deep into his extraordinary life, from his birth in a colonial Kenya to his studies in the USA to his starting to serve the country and cuts across the reign of four Presidents. While writing his memoir, Musila has shown utmost honesty, and has often talked of things that were talked of only in hush-hush voices or rather never talked of!
Musila's first assignment was to address the thorny issue of land and resettlement in the independent Kenya, which he performed so well that many new challenges were confidently thrown at him, which he gracefully accepted. Alert, observant, keen, good listener, record maintaining, he learnt all that well, but politics is all together a different set of challenge, which becomes disheartening at times.
While he already the best upbringing behind him, he also earned himself the best mentors, combining the two made many people jealous even as several tried to pull him down. Land adjudication and resettlement; peace-making with the then ruling party, KANU; unabashedly serving Kenyans in various capacities, have been few of the highlights of his carrier.
Beyond everything, Musila went on to perform every duty well; as a human, a son, a brother, a husband, a father, a Public Administrator, a leader, peace makers. With David Musila Foundation, he has started working against the grassroot of all issues... lack of education and support to those who really need it to understand their needs towards growth.
Imperial Reckoning The Untold Story o...
Brief Summary
Britain fought in the Second World War to save the world from fascism. But just a few years after the defeat of Hitler came the Mau Mau uprising in Kenya - a mass armed rebellion by the Kikuyu people, demanding the return of their land and freedom. The draconian response of Britain's colonial government was to detain nearly the entire Kikuyu population of one-and-a half-million - to hold them in camps or confine them in villages ringed with barbed wire - and to portray them as sub-human savages.
From 1952 until the end of the war in 1960 tens of thousands of detainees - and possibly a hundred thousand or more - died from the combined effects of exhaustion, disease, starvation and systemic physical brutality. Until now these events have remained untold, largely because the British government in Kenya destroyed most of its files. For the last eight years Caroline Elkins has conducted exhaustive research to piece together the story, unearthing reams of documents and interviewing several hundred Kikuyu survivors.
Britain's Gulag reveals what happened inside Kenya's detention camps, as well as the efforts to conceal the truth. Now, for the first time, we can understand the full savagery of the Mau Mau war and the ruthless determination with which Britain sought to control its empire.
ISBN:9780805080018
Author: Caroline Elkins
The 5th Columnist a Legendary Journal...
To many, Philip Ochieng is that proud atheist and relentless social critic with unmatched grasp of the English language in the region. To others, though, he is undoubtedly a media giant and a journalist of great repute.
Having served in various capacities in the media industry, Ochieng has earned both praise and condemnation from not just his readers but also his employers, colleagues and the powers that be Carried within these pages of The Fifth Columnist is the story of Ochieng's life -education, work, social Life, beliefs - as told through interviews with the career journalist, his family, friends, neighbors and workmates.
And from his writings and travels.
Gardening in Eastern Africa by Kenya ...
This is a practical guide book to gardening in the Eastern Africa region.
This practical guide to gardening in Eastern African region covers topics ranging from growing fruit and vegetables (including many local species) and gardening with indigenous plants, to ideas for designing your garden, and what to grow if you live in an apartment.
It contains many drawings and diagrams as well as nearly one thousand full color photographs.
