The Culture of Politics in Modern Kenya

by Angelique Haugerud

Overview

Once the major success story of a troubled continent, by the early 1990s Kenya came to be regarded as its fallen star. This book challenges such images of reversal and the analytical polarities that sustain them. The analysis ranges from telescopic to microscopic fields, combining many disciplines and perspectives to give a rich and varied picture of the culture of politics in twentieth-century Kenya.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780521595902
Publisher:	Cambridge University Press
Publication date:	05/13/1997
Series:	African Studies , #84
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	284
Product dimensions:	5.98(w) x 9.02(h) x 0.75(d)

Table of Contents

Introduction; 1. Staging politics in Kenya; 2. Shattered silences: political culture and 'democracy' in the early 1990s; 3. Open secrets: everyday forms of domination before 1990; 4. Moral economy and the quest for wealth in central Kenya since the late nineteenth century; 5. The dove and the castor nut: Embu household economy in the 1980s; 6. Conclusions: 'the showpiece of an hour'.

Editorial Reviews

"This book is an exciting attempt to bring methods and concepts from contemporary anthropology to bear on African politics." Foreign Affairs

"Simons brackets her aims and achievements honestly....The silences in her text voice significant themes for the future consideration." Joan Vincent, American Anthropologist

"An exceptionally rare and powerful combination of analytical sophistication joined to a scrupulous, historically-grounded account of politics, social practice, and material life." James C. Scott, Eugene Meyer Professor of Political Science, Yale University

"This book is an exciting attempt to bring methods and concepts from contemporary anthropology to bear on African politics." Foreign Affairs

"Simons brackets her aims and achievements honestly....The silences in her text voice significant themes for the future consideration." Joan Vincent, American Anthropologist

From the Publisher