Synopses & Reviews
Once the major success story of a troubled continent, by the early 1990s Kenya came to be regarded as its fallen star. This book challenges such images of reversal and the analytical polarities that sustain them. The analysis ranges from telescopic to microscopic fields, combining many disciplines and perspectives to give a rich and varied picture of the culture of politics in twentieth-century Kenya.
Review
"This book is an exciting attempt to bring methods and concepts from contemporary anthropology to bear on African politics." Foreign Affairs
Review
"Simons brackets her aims and achievements honestly....The silences in her text voice significant themes for the future consideration." Joan Vincent, American Anthropologist
Review
"An exceptionally rare and powerful combination of analytical sophistication joined to a scrupulous, historically-grounded account of politics, social practice, and material life." James C. Scott, Eugene Meyer Professor of Political Science, Yale University
Table of Contents
Introduction; 1. Staging politics in Kenya; 2. Shattered silences: political culture and 'democracy' in the early 1990s; 3. Open secrets: everyday forms of domination before 1990; 4. Moral economy and the quest for wealth in central Kenya since the late nineteenth century; 5. The dove and the castor nut: Embu household economy in the 1980s; 6. Conclusions: 'the showpiece of an hour'.