The Kikuyu insurrection of the 1950s, colloquially known as Mau Mau, is one of the most well-covered topics in Kenyan history. Part anti-colonial uprising and part Kikuyu civil war, the unrest has drawn the attention of a great many historians over the past fifty years. More recently, books in the commercial press by Caroline Elkins and David Anderson have introduced what the British termed ‘the Mau Mau Emergency’ to a much wider, non-specialist readership. This was particularly true for Elkins's Pulitzer Prize-winning Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain's Gulag in Kenya, which simplistically depicted the conflict as a struggle between anti-colonial rebels and the collaborationist Kikuyu allies of a genocidally inclined imperial regime. This sensational charge resonated strongly with contemporary Kenyans seeking to recall Mau Mau as a unifying nationalist struggle, but it did not mesh well with the Mau Mau historical canon, which emphasizes that the violence that gripped the Kikuyu community was primarily intimate, local, and fratricidal.

Daniel Branch's meticulously researched and carefully argued Defeating Mau Mau, Creating Kenya: Counterinsurgency, Civil War, and Decolonization can be read as a corrective response to both Elkins and popular Kenyan nationalism and as a reconsideration of the Emergency within the framework of counterinsurgency studies. His central argument that ‘as many Kikuyu fought with the colonial government as did those against it’ will come as no surprise to Kenyanist historians, and the book itself traces the standard narrative outline of the Emergency (p. xii). But in providing a systematically detailed study of the Kikuyu who fought against the Mau Mau, Branch adds a much-needed element of ambiguity into Kenya's complex and troubled colonial history. Challenging the popular notion that these ‘loyalists’ who opposed Mau Mau were self-interested traitors or Christian elites, he demonstrates that most of the people who sided with the government were motivated by personal and local concerns rather than affection for the imperial regime. By telling the stories of common men and women, many of whom died at the hands of their own Mau Mau-allied family members and neighbors, he shows that most loyalists were peasants who were alienated by the violent tactics of the insurgents and sought nothing more than security during dangerous times.

This does not mean, however, that Defeating Mau Mau, Creating Kenya is an apologia for the loyalists. On the contrary, it rightly depicts the loyalist militia, known as the Home Guard, as an instrument of ‘state-sanctioned and sponsored terror’ (p. 87). Moreover, the second half of the book explains how loyalists came to dominate postcolonial Kenya even though most Kenyans recall their Mau Mau opponents as the true heroes of independence. And it is in these later chapters that Branch makes a significant and original contribution to Kenyan history because the story of how the loyalists used their dominant position in the civil administration and security services to acquire a lion's share of the former White Highlands is not as well known as the narrative of the Emergency itself. Similarly, Branch's counterinsurgency frame is helpful in putting Mau Mau and its eventual defeat within the broader context of post-war independence and revolutionary movements.

Nonetheless, it is impossible not to see the primary thrust of this book as a direct and intentional challenge to Elkins's Imperial Reckoning. There is no mistaking Branch's meaning when he writes: ‘It is not simply that histories of the Mau Mau war are incomplete by excluding loyalists, but that they are profoundly flawed’ (p. 209). This argument is persuasive, but it is worth noting that most Mau Mau debates ultimately reflect differences over evidence. Elkins's extensive use of compelling oral histories was both the great strength and the fundamental weakness of her book. Branch, in contrast, cites only 16 informants and admits, interestingly, that several of these former loyalists did not see the value in revisiting their roll in the Emergency. At its core, Defeating Mau Mau, Creating Kenya is a work of social history, but most of its evidence comes from letters, petitions, and legal records gleaned from the Kenyan and British archives. Branch does a fine job of teasing compelling personal stories out of these official and semi-official colonial era records, but it is frustrating that he does not spend much time considering how the violence and danger of the Emergency might have influenced how his subjects articulated their ‘loyalism’ in conversation with, and in reference to, a foreign and autocratic imperial regime. This problem of evidence is precisely why it has been so hard to write the definitive history of the Mau Mau Emergency, and it is very much to Branch's credit that he has done so well in restoring the loyalists to their central place in the story. Moreover, his book's sharp and clearly written narrative account of the revolt and its aftermath means that it is accessible to lay readers and could serve as an introductory text in African history courses.