Kenya: Between Hope and Despair

Kenya: Between Hope and Despair

Date: Thursday 9^th February 2012, 7-9PM

Venue: Room G2, SOAS

Panel discussion with authors Daniel Branch (Kenya: Between Hope and Despair 1963-2011) and Charles Honrsby (Kenya: A History since Independence); Eusebio Waweru, Philosophy PhD Student at the University of Edinburgh; and freelance journalist Charlotte Njeru.

Chair: Professor John Lonsdale, Trinity College, Cambridge University (TBC).

Daniel Branch and Charles Honrsby’s recently published books, Kenya: Between Hope and Despair 1963-2011 and Kenya: A History since Independence respectively, chart the recent history of Kenya from independence to the present day in different but complimentary ways.

In advance of Kenya’s 2012 elections, our panel of speakers will take this as an opportunity to reflect on the past and discuss what may lay ahead for the country’s future.

About the authors

Daniel Branch is an associate professor of African history at the University of Warwick.  He is the author of Defeating Mau Mau, Creating Kenya (Cambridge UP, Cambridge & New York, 2009) and Kenya: Between Hope and Despair 1963-2011 (Yale UP,  London & New Haven, 2011).

Charles Hornsby has combined a career in a multi-national company with a deep engagement in Kenya. He has published several articles on Kenyan politics and co-authored with David Throup the influential Multi-Party Politics in Kenya. He has been a journalist or election observer during most of Kenya’s recent elections, and lived and worked in Ghana in 1995–8 and Kenya in 1999–2001. He is the author of the recently published Kenya: A History since Independence.

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