Kenya: The National Epic

Kenya: The National Epic PDF Author:
Publisher: East African Publishers
ISBN:
Category : Kenya
Languages : en
Pages : 348

Get Book Here

Book Description

Kenya: The National Epic

Kenya: The National Epic PDF Author:
Publisher: East African Publishers
ISBN:
Category : Kenya
Languages : en
Pages : 348

Get Book Here

Book Description


The Epic of Gor Mahia

The Epic of Gor Mahia PDF Author: Adrian Onyando
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Kenyan poetry (English)
Languages : en
Pages : 240

Get Book Here

Book Description


Historical Dictionary of Kenya

Historical Dictionary of Kenya PDF Author: Michael Mwenda Kithinji
Publisher: Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN: 1538157462
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 617

Get Book Here

Book Description
Kenya has a rich and complex history. Due to the vast discoveries of prehistoric archaeological remains, Kenya is one of the few places in the world with the largest and most complete record of human’s cultural development. Furthermore, the country’s strategic location astride the Indian Ocean and the East African littoral attracted numerous foreigners such as the Arabs, Persians, Portuguese, Americans, British, Chinese, French, and Germans. Additionally, immigrants from throughout Africa and beyond have settled in Kenya to escape conflict or political persecution, while others wanted an opportunity to begin a new life. As a result of being a gateway to the world, the country traditionally has been one of the most important business, cultural, diplomatic, and political centers in Africa. Still, Kenya, like many other countries throughout the world, has been plagued by an increasing array of complex economic, political, and social challenges. Historical Dictionary of Kenya, Fourth Edition contains a chronology, an introduction, and an extensive bibliography. The dictionary section has more than 500 cross-referenced entries on important personalities as well as aspects of the country’s politics, economy, foreign relations, religion, and culture. This book is an excellent resource for students, researchers, and anyone wanting to know more about Kenya.

Culture and Customs of Kenya

Culture and Customs of Kenya PDF Author: Neal W. Sobania
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing USA
ISBN: 0313039364
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 256

Get Book Here

Book Description
Kenya, a land of safaris, wild animals, and Maasai warriors, perfectly represents Africa for many Westerners. This peerless single-source book presents the contemporary reality of life in Kenya, an important East-African nation that has served as a crossroads for peoples and cultures from Africa, the Middle East, and East Asia for centuries. As such, it is a land rich in cultural and ethnic diversity, where unique and dynamic traditions blend with modern influences. Students and general readers will be engrossed in narrative overviews highlighting Kenyan history, as well as the beliefs, vibrant cultural expressions, and various lifestyles and roles of the Kenyan population. A chronology, glossary, and numerous photos enhance the narrative. Kenya today struggles with nation building. Its society comprises the haves and the have-nots and faces the challenges of the trend toward urbanization, with its attendant disruption of traditional social structures. For Kenyans, the preserving of traditional cultures is as important as making the statement that Kenya is a modern nation. Chapters on the land, people, and history; religion and worldview; literature, film, and media; art and architecture; cuisine and traditional dress; gender roles, marriage, and family; and social customs and lifestyle are up to date and written by a country expert. A chronology, glossary, and numerous photos enhance the narrative.

The Perfect Nine

The Perfect Nine PDF Author: Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o
Publisher: The New Press
ISBN: 1620975262
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 242

Get Book Here

Book Description
Longlisted for the 2021 International Booker Prize A dazzling, genre-defying novel in verse from the author Delia Owens says “tackles the absurdities, injustices, and corruption of a continent” Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o's novels and memoirs have received glowing praise from the likes of President Barack Obama, the New Yorker, the New York Times Book Review, The Guardian, and NPR; he has been a finalist for the Man International Booker Prize and is annually tipped to win the Nobel Prize for Literature; and his books have sold tens of thousands of copies around the world. In his first attempt at the epic form, Ngũgĩ tells the story of the founding of the Gĩkũyũ people of Kenya, from a strongly feminist perspective. A verse narrative, blending folklore, mythology, adventure, and allegory, The Perfect Nine chronicles the efforts the Gĩkũyũ founders make to find partners for their ten beautiful daughters—called “The Perfect Nine” —and the challenges they set for the 99 suitors who seek their hands in marriage. The epic has all the elements of adventure, with suspense, danger, humor, and sacrifice. Ngũgĩ's epic is a quest for the beautiful as an ideal of living, as the motive force behind migrations of African peoples. He notes, “The epic came to me one night as a revelation of ideals of quest, courage, perseverance, unity, family; and the sense of the divine, in human struggles with nature and nurture.”

Governance and the Crisis of Rule in Contemporary Africa

Governance and the Crisis of Rule in Contemporary Africa PDF Author: Ebenezer Obadare
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 1137566868
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 309

Get Book Here

Book Description
This volume advances the discussions of leadership in Africa's specific history, culture, economy, and politics. The book promotes an understanding of leadership and its paradoxes and illuminates the conditions under which political leadership has been produced, and how those conditions have shaped leaders.

Rethinking the Mau Mau in Colonial Kenya

Rethinking the Mau Mau in Colonial Kenya PDF Author: S. Alam
Publisher: Springer
ISBN: 0230606997
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 256

Get Book Here

Book Description
This offers an alternative to the colonialistand nationalist explanations of the Mau Mau revolt, examining a widely studied period of Kenyan history from a new perspective.

The Foreign Policies of East African States

The Foreign Policies of East African States PDF Author: Jude Kagoro
Publisher: Taylor & Francis
ISBN: 1040261930
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 217

Get Book Here

Book Description
This book analyses the foreign policies of African countries, specifically in the region of East Africa. It reveals the regional dynamics and the way in which the international system interacts with these policies and how they are driven by domestic politics versus national visions, and vice versa. As such, it provides fine-grained and historically informed analyses of the international relations of these states arguing that foreign policy is always informed by domestic processes and the relations between states and changes within the international system impact on the formulation of domestic politics via foreign policy. Finally, the book argues that East Africa’s foreign policy is not one of militarised action alone but rather a mélange of self-survival strategies stemming from the desire to close the gap with more industrialised states necessitating a variety of trade and diplomatic efforts. This book is of key interest to scholars and students of African politics, Foreign Policy, Foreign Policy Analysis, International Organisations and, more broadly, to comparative politics and international relations.

The White Spaces of Kenyan Settler Writing

The White Spaces of Kenyan Settler Writing PDF Author: Terrence L. Craig
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004346511
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 235

Get Book Here

Book Description
The White Spaces of Kenyan Settler Writing provides an overview of Kenyan literature by white writers in the half-century before Independence in 1964. Such literature has been over-shadowed by that of black writers to the point of critical ostracism. It deserves attention for its own sake, as the expression of a community that hoped for permanence but suffered both disappointment and dispossession. It deserves attention for its articulation of an increasingly desperate colonial and Imperial situation at a time when both were being attacked and abandoned in Africa, as in other colonies elsewhere, and when a counter-discourse was being constructed by writers in Britain as well as in Africa. Kenya was likely the best-known twentieth-century colony, for it attracted publicity for its iconic safaris and its Happy Valley scandals. Yet behind such scenes were settlers who had taken over lands from the native peoples and who were trying to make a future for themselves, based on the labour, willing or forced, of those people. This situation can be seen as a microcosm of one colonial exercise, and can illuminate the historical tensions of such times. The bibliography is an attempt to collect the literary resources of white Kenya in this historically significant period.

The Socio-Cultural, Ethnic and Historic Foundations of Kenya’s Electoral Violence

The Socio-Cultural, Ethnic and Historic Foundations of Kenya’s Electoral Violence PDF Author: Stephen M. Magu
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1351142429
Category : Political Science
Languages : en
Pages : 262

Get Book Here

Book Description
Kenya’s 2007 General Election results announcement precipitated the worst ethnic conflict in the country’s history; 1,133 people were killed, while 600,000 were internally displaced. Within 2 months, the incumbent and the challenger had agreed to a power-sharing agreement and a Government of National Unity. This book investigates the role of socio-cultural origins of ethnic conflict during electoral periods in Kenya beginning with the multi-party era of democratization and the first multi-party elections of 1992, illustrating how ethnic groups construct their interests and cooperate (or fail to) based on shared traits. The author demonstrates that socio-cultural traditions have led to the collaboration (and frequent conflict) between the Kikuyu and Kalenjin that has dominated power and politics in independent Kenya. The author goes onto evaluate the possibility of peace for future elections. This book will be of interest to scholars of African democracy, Kenyan history and politics, and ethnic conflict.