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Red Strangers looks at the motives and way of life of those Europeans who went to Kenya between 1888 and 1963, when the country achieved independence from colonial rule. They were farmers who applied modern methods to land formerly tilled by African subsistence agriculturalists, administrators who kept the peace, professionals who tended the sick and exercised the rule of law and taught literacy, missionaries who imposed Western religious beliefs, technical staff who made roads and railways, businessmen, adventurers and hunters. These people were members of the upper and middle classes in their home countries.
To some extent they copied the prejudices and practices of their former lives, but soon there arose a new breed of whites born in their adopted country. They were shaped as much by Kenya as by what they learnt from Europe. A unique social organism developed. As it did, so contradictions and tensions arose, particularly between whites and Africans. This book shows how different sections of the white population met these challenges. Eventually they had to face up to the heart-breaking necessity of leaving and impossibility of return when Kenya became independent. But the white population had cast indelible shadows. Their influence echoes even today.
book reviews
Anthony Kirk-Greene, International Journal of African Research
"In a nutshell, this is the best story of Kenya's white population that I have ever read ...._Red Strangers_ is tellingly researched and narrated; it also evaluates convincingly and reads flowingly....for sheer interest, authority and readability, _Red Strangers_ is a history hard to equal. A new classic on Kenya has arrived."Catholic Herald
"Amid the hypnotic detail of the account are some endearing anecdotes... Her research is immaculate... The huge amount of evidence she has marshalled ... On the decolonisation process Nicholls writes well. Nicholls sets out to be fair, and her conclusion is as follows: while the whites made an enormous contribution to the country's development, unfortunately the manner in which this was done was frequently arrogant, overbearing and insensitive."Times Literary Supplement
"Nicholls is a good deal more accurate than [Elspeth] Huxley, a notoriously unreliable, if charming, witness, and she deploys a wide range of primary sources, many previously unpublished. This book is scupulously compiled and beautifully annotated."
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