David Beal on Docteur Nico, the pioneering guitarist of Congolese rumba https://go.nybooks.com/4s6OsvO
In the following days and weeks 11 more students reported to the pioneer secondary school for Africans in Kenya. The last was Magugu Waweru who joined the school in the second term on July 22, 1926. (2/2)
"On 1 March 1926, the Alliance High School, Kikuyu, opened quietly without pomp or ceremony." On hand to receive the first 16 students that day, were George Grieve, the Acting Principal, his wife Annie and Solomon Kinuthia, the carpenter. The History of the Alliance High School J Stephen Smith (1/2)
Thuku was named after his maternal grandfather. Who was originally called Karanja, but took the name Thuku - short for ruthuku. The name for the brass wire that the Arabs sold to the Agikuyu in exchange for elephant tusks. (2/2)
Harry Thuku features extensively in chapter 2 of John Spencer's KAU. That led me to 'Harry Thuku - An Autobiography' done with the assistance of Kenneth King in 1970. Fascinated by his time and education at the Gospel Missionary Society in Kambui, with Wanyoike Kamawe, from 1907 - 1911. (1/2)
Now reading 'The Kenyan African Union' by John Spencer
Please join the Northeast Africa Forum on 17 Feb for a book launch & discussion of:
'Peasants to Paupers: Land, Class and Kinship in Central Kenya'
with author Peter Lockwood (Göttingen)
& David Anderson (Warwick)
*Hybrid event* Full details & webinar registration:
talks.ox.ac.uk/talks/id/b8f...
It is of interest! Thank you!
Hempstone's compromise was to provide a list of excellent books about Africa at the end of his book - "... those to which I owe most ... ".
In the coming weeks, I need to figure out whether to footnote or not to footnote in the book I am writing! (5/5)
" ... I didn't want to relegate that background to footnotes and endnotes (I hate footnotes and endnotes.)" Obama in the preface of his book 'A Promised Land' (2020) (4/5)
"This book has not been footnoted because it is not a document of record but a means of communication and footnoting, I feel, destroys the flow of a narrative."
Smith Hempstone in the introduction of his book 'Africa Angry Young Giant'. Written in Timau, Kenya in March 1960. (3/5)
To my surprise, I am learning that there is a strong argument against footnotes. Alarmingly this argument is made by good writers like Barack Obama and the late Smith Hempstone (journalist and later US Ambassador to Kenya). (2/5)
My assumption as I write, has been that a 'serious' book should have footnotes or endnotes. To cite sources and provide additional information. I thought I must include footnotes, because they have been an invaluable source of additional information in my research process. (1/5)
When Yoweri Museveni seized power in Uganda in 1986, he said:
"the problem of Africa in general and Uganda in particular is not the people but leaders who want to overstay in power."
The 81-year-old president and former rebel is seeking a seventh term in office on Thursday.
Great to be back for more #ShortBeachBirds. The usual herons, terns & Crab-plovers but also v out-of-season Mangrove Kingfisher calling from across the creek + a Sooty Gull is not common yo see. #birds #birding #Watamu
Four fascinating maps of Africa in 1912 by a Christian missionary organization based in the United States of America.
The vastness is fairly accurate, so to is the population at 150 million. A Negro race in West Africa? 🤔 The railway, cable telegram and telephone seems overly optimistic.
Somalia's Siad Barre: Kenyan pilot tells BBC of his secret mission to fly his body from Nigeria
"The historian never arrives at certainty; he rarely ends with more than a not altogether sifted totality of plausible, hypothetical, guessed at and imagined formulations of what had been." P Weiss
Footnote 2 on page 9 of Godfrey Muriuki's brilliant 1969 PhD Thesis 'A History of the Kikuyu to 1904'.
The rise of Venezuela's deposed president, Nicolás Maduro, was slow, beginning in youth politics and shaped by the mentorship of Hugo Chávez. His fall, too, unfolded over years. n.pr/4bfdcfB
I bought a pack of 375gm Java House AA coffee beans at Quickmart Kileleshwa on Dec 19, 2025. I was lucky as it was packed on Dec 16, 2025, presumably roasted a day or so prior. I went back to Quickmart on Jan 2, 2026 for more but all they had on the shelf was the batch packed on Nov 24, 2025. 🤔
One of the goals of the Teleki expedition was 'to open up the now shunned and dreaded Kikuyu country' and visit Mt. Kenia. The caravan, which had set off from Zanzibar, then proceeded to present day Lake Turkana and Lake Chew Bahir in Ethiopia, which he named Rudolf and Stephanie respectively. (3/3)
The other account is by Ludwig Ritter von Höhnel in his book 'Discovery of Lakes Rudolf and Stefanie: A Narrative of Count Samuel Teleki's Exploring & Hunting Expedition in Eastern Equatorial Africa in 1887 & 1888'. Leading the caravan were Zanzibari/Swahili guides with hundreds of porters. (2/3)
Fascinating to cross reference two accounts of the brutal encounters between the Agikuyu and first visiting Europeans in Aug/Sep 1887. One by Koinange wa Mbiyu great grandson of Gatheca, who received Teleki and his party that included Ludwig Ritter von Höhnel www.youtube.com/watch?v=klvA... (1/3)
"It remains for us a painful matter that Christians who had a church in a land for 45 years, left only a building when they left the country."
The last sentence of Gerrit D Green's 1974 PhD thesis, titled 'The Afrikaners in Kenya, 1903 - 1969.'
The old picture was taken on the morning of February 4, 1886 in Rabai. The surviving members of the ill-fated Hannington caravan to Uganda, led by William Henry Jones had just returned. In the background is the partially constructed St. Paul Church. The Church Missionary Gleaner 1886 (pages 54 - 55)
'111 days in Stanleyville' by David E Reed (1965). Riveting book about the Simba rebellion in Congo. Horrific violence, murder and mayhem.
"History is lived forwards but it is written in retrospect. We know the end before we consider the beginning and we can never wholly recapture what it was to know the beginning only." C.V. Wedgwood
I was quite surprised too. Yes there were many Afrikaners in the Eldoret and larger Uasin Gishu area. That may be the reason for the name Trans Nzoia, which means across the Nzoia. Similar to the placed formerly called Transvaal in South Africa.
On Sep 11, 1914 Germans troops from Tanganyika marched on Kisii, and took over the 'town after the British settlers fled. 40 KAR and 60 settlers marched from Kericho and after some fighting, the Germans retreated. When the Germans were in-charge Africans had looted the homes of the British settlers!
Now reading 'Red Strangers: The White Tribe of Kenya' by CS Nicholls
