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Huw Bennett. 2013. Fighting the Mau Mau: The British Army and Counter-Insurgency in the Kenya Emergency. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 307 pp.
Huw Bennett challenges the traditional conclusion that the British army successfully fought the Mau Mau by winning the "hearts and minds of the people." He is qualified to write on the military history of counter-insurgency in Kenya because he acted as one of the expert witnesses in the Mau Mau case at the UK High Court in London whereby Kenyans sought reparations claiming disgusting abuse at the hands of the security forces. This case afforded Bennett access to a wide range of files concerning Kenya, including new material that was released under the Freedom of Information Act. Using colonial archives at Hanslope Park, which was housed in Her Majesty's Government Communication Centre, he argues that the army utilized force and passed severe Emergency regulations to terrify the civilian population into submission.
Before Bennett's 2013 book, the orthodox school of thought advanced the triumphalism attitude in the military and academic circles about the British military's professionalism. In this regard, orthodox scholars alleged that the army carried out operations within the confines of law by using minimum force in counter-insurgency warfare and hence targeted insurgents without harming civilians. This book challenges the orthodoxy and provides an in-depth account on the role of the...