Audiobooks by Caroline Elkins

Britain's Gulag: The Brutal End of Empire in Kenya

Brought to you by Penguin. 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 Britain's 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. Britain's 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. © Caroline Elkins 2005 (P) Penguin Audio 2024

Caroline Elkins (Author), TBD, Teri Schnaubelt (Narrator)

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Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire

Brought to you by Penguin. From the Pulitzer Prize-winning historian: a searing study of the British Empire that interrogates the pervasive use of violence throughout the twentieth century and traces how these practices were exported, modified, and institutionalized in colonies around the globe. Sprawling across a quarter of the world's land mass and claiming nearly 500 colonial subjects, Britain's empire was the largest empire in human history. For many, it epitomized our nation's cultural superiority, but what legacy have we delivered to the world? Spanning more than two hundred years of history, Caroline Elkins reveals evolutionary and racialized doctrines that espoused an unrelenting deployment of violence to secure and preserve British imperial interests. She outlines how ideological foundations of violence were rooted in Victorian calls for punishing indigenous peoples who resisted subjugation, and how over time, this treatment became increasingly institutionalized. Elkins reveals how, when violence could no longer be controlled, Britain retreated from its empire, whilst destroying and hiding incriminating evidence of its policies and practices. Drawing on more than a decade of research on four continents, Legacy of Violence implicates all sides of the political divide regarding the creation, execution, and cover-up of imperial violence. By demonstrating how and why violence was the most salient factor underwriting both the empire and British imperial identity, Elkins upends long-held myths and sheds new light on empire's role in shaping the world today. © Caroline Elkins 2022 (P) Penguin Audio 2022

Caroline Elkins (Author), Adam Barr (Narrator)

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