It is not surprising to come across the adjective ‘stupendous’ being used to describe my colleague Fred Anderson's magisterial Crucible of War: The Seven Years’ War and the Fate of Empire in British North America, 1754–1766. One little expects, however, to find it in a book about Mau Mau and modern Kenya. Fear not Africanists, the study of Mau Mau has not yet penetrated the historiography of early America; but for Nicholas Githuku, the inspirational notion of the ‘crucible’ – as a pivotal venue or historical moment – sits at the core of understanding Kenyan history. For Githuku, the crucible was Mau Mau, the guerrilla conflict that exploded in the colony in the 1950s. In Mau Mau, argues Githuku, the nation was forged, and it is his task to explore how the conflict and the everyday struggles it encapsulated have shaped the historical trajectory of modern Kenya.

Githuku is concerned with the relations between state and society. During the colonial era, policies including land alienation and forced labor – in a framework of racial discrimination – formed a relationship in which Africans received little to no redress for their grievances from the state. Digging deeply into the range of petitions and oral testimonies produced by Africans and addressed to the Colonial Office, Kenya government, and various metropolitan commissions, Githuku reveals the variety of ways in which commoners articulated their concerns to little avail, thus creating a high level of ‘psychosocial’ trauma. Githuku views the Mau Mau war as a moment in which the worries of the peasant farmer or jua kali (informal) mechanic might have been assuaged, but ‘phony’ independence brought no real change. The modern state instead doubled down on its colonial foundation, basing its authority on the use of force cloaked by the veil of legalism and notions of ‘order’.

In outlining similar aspects of statehood in Kenya's colonial and independent manifestations, Githuku follows a well-trodden path, most recently walked by Daniel Branch and Charles Hornsby. But in taking on the continuities of popular discontent and protest against the state, Githuku makes his most original contribution. The second half of his work focuses on the microhistories belonging to everyday Kenyans that have run divergent (or in direct opposition) to the national narrative since the ‘shambolic … gesture’ that was independence (219). Tracing popular disillusionment and discontent forward from the colonial era, Githuku views later movements ranging from Mungiki to the Sabaot Land Defense Force as manifestations of unmet expectations rooted in the ‘Mau Mau mind’. Land is the central factor here: colonial land policies – little changed since 1963 – have forced the majority of Kenyans to live insecurely while their leaders enjoy opulent estates. Githuku makes skillful use of little-known petitions written to the independent government of Jomo Kenyatta in exploring these ‘crowd histories’ (which unfortunately were usually passed along to the intelligence services). For the Moi era (1978–2002), Githuku works from a number of obscure but fascinating tracts and pamphlets housed at the Library of Congress and in Kenya (though one wonders whether women's activism as represented by Wangari Maathai and the Green Belt Movement might have warranted mention). In his analysis of the Mwai Kibaki and Uhuru Kenyatta presidencies, Githuku turns to music, graffiti, and other forms of ‘oracy’, all of which the author views as new ways in which Kenyans have continued the ‘quest for popular statehood’ (474). Many of these artists continue to look to the colonial period for inspiration in this ‘genealogy of grievance’, like hip-hop artists Ukoo Flani Mau Mau, or Internet-based activists and the #Sickat50 campaign, an alternative ‘celebration’ of fifty years of Kenya's independence (447). Githuku views Kenya's new constitution as a possible platform for permitting the Kenyan poor to one day attain the self-mastery and dignity they have long desired.

While this is an impressive, original, and exhaustive work – especially for the years after 1963 – I found it difficult to recognize Githuku's depiction of the colonial state. It appears as a powerful, all-encompassing monster, with the ability to shape African lives based on its every whim. It feels, too, like the only real factor worthy of note in considering the experiences of the rural poor, which is perhaps a product of Githuku's extensive work with the documentary record. Moreover, his assertions about ‘Africans’ can feel thin at times; this is a book based in significant part on the Kikuyu experience (especially in the colonial era), and the notion that Mau Mau somehow encapsulated rural struggle in Kenya (in the ‘Mau Mau mind’) feels awkward when many Kikuyu – and far more beyond Central Province – so deeply rejected the movement. I should end by noting a final frustration, though certainly the author bears no responsibility for it. Priced at $140, this book will be out of reach to all but libraries, most in the United States and Europe. Thus a rich book about the varied, complex, and brave struggle of ordinary Kenyans against the state will likely prove inaccessible to its actual subjects.