Caroline Elkins

Shortlisted for the Baillie Gifford Prize, a revelatory, fearless history of the British Empire that lays bare its pervasive use of violence throughout the twentieth century.In this groundbreaking work, Pulitzer Prizewinning historian Caroline Elkins uncovers the systematic brutality at the heart of the British Empire. Drawing on more than a decade of research across four continents and newly declassified archives, she exposes the global network of detention camps, torture, and cover-ups that underpinned the imperial project - from Kenya to Malaya and beyond.Far from isolated incidents, Elkins reveals a pattern of violence, used to secure and maintain Britains interests across the globe. Legacy of Violence is meticulously researched, passionately argued, and deeply relevant to todays debates about empire, accountability and historical memory.A NEW YORK TIMES, NEW STATESMAN, HISTORY TODAY AND BBC HISTORY MAGAZINE BOOK OF THE YEARMasterly This book is dynamite Robert GildeaNot so much a history book as a book of historical significance BBC History MagazineCrucial as unflinching as it is gripping Jill Lepore

Only a few years after Britain defeated fascism 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 Britains colonial government was to detain nearly the entire Kikuyu population of 1.5 million and to portray them as sub-human savages. Detainees in their thousands - possibly a hundred thousand or more - died from exhaustion, disease, starvation and systemic physical brutality. For decades these events remained untold.Caroline Elkins conducted years of research to piece together this story, unearthing reams of documents and interviewing several hundred Kikuyu survivors. Britains Gulag reveals, for the first time, the full savagery of the Mau Mau war and the ruthless determination with which Britain sought to control its empire.

A principios del siglo xx, el Imperio británico abarcaba una cuarta parte de la superficie terrestre y contaba con una población de casi setecientos millones de personas. Para la mayoría de sus habitantes, representaba la maxima expresion de la superioridad cultural de su nacion sobre el resto del mundo. Pero, en realidad, ¿que legado dejo este Imperio de mas de doscientos años de historia?Tras mas de una decada de investigacion, Caroline Elkins nos revela, en Legado de violencia, la historia del verdadero poder colonial britanico, basada en una doctrina evolutiva y racializada que defendia el uso implacable de la violencia para asegurar y preservar sus intereses imperiales. Porque, si bien el Imperio pretendia justificar su gobierno a partir de una civilizacion cultural, todo al final se resolvia en una depredacion de los recursos naturales y el castigo a los nativos mas recalcitrantes. Y Elkins nos muestra como, con el tiempo, estas formas se sistematizaron cada vez mas y que, cuando ya no fue posible controlar la violencia que provocaba y ejercia, se trato de destruir y ocultar cualquier prueba incriminatoria de sus politicas y practicas.Este "Legado de la violencia" es, asi, un estudio historico, omnicomprensivo, y a la vez mordaz, sobre la creacion, ejecucion y encubrimiento de la violencia implacable del Imperio para sustentar su poder. Y, con ello, Elkins desmantela mitos arraigados y arroja nueva luz sobre el papel de Gran Bretaña en la configuracion del mundo actual.