Imperial Reckoning Caroline Elkins Summary

When sitting down to write her college thesis, Caroline Elkins, intended to focus on the successes of the British Empire when educating its colonies in preparation for their impending independence; however, her discoveries concerning the brutal mistreatment of the Kikuyu people in the 1950s led to the publication of her novel Imperial Reckoning that uncovered 50 years worth of British brutality of it’s remaining colonies. As elucidated by Elkins, the massive cover-up done by the British government was entirely to keep up their image and reputation as the country that won World War II and saved the world from complete totalitarianism, when in reality they had indeed mimicked their very enemies with a virtual rebirth of the Holocaust in Kenya—less

In typical British fashion, the independence process was projected to take at least a generation and in the meantime, planned on continuing to prosper off of its colonies. Losing India as their crown jewel in 1947 was the first big blow, and demonstrated to the other colonies how quickly independence was possible. Britain feared such massive and rapid decolonization as it would make them appear weak, both internally and externally. The Cold War was beginning to heat up—excuse the pun—between the US and the Soviet Union, leaving Britain flailing in the distance, determined to still have a paramount stance in international affairs. British efforts to conceal the incriminating evidence in Kenya were done so at a crucial point in history—Britain had a fragile image to uphold as the antithesis of typical European imperialists such as Germany or France who were remembered as the vicious colonists that ravaged through Africa in the early 20th century. Peaceful independence on British terms was the main priority in educating the colonies to be successful during post-British rule and continue as allies with positive relations as Britain had done with countries such as Australia and New Zealand; however, those were mainly white settled territories and Britain’s discriminatory values prevented them from viewing their African colonies as fellow counterparts of