Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain’s Gulag in Kenya by Caroline Elkins - 2005 - 701 Pages

 Imperial Reckoning:  The Untold Story of Britain’s Gulag in Kenya by Caroline Elkins - 2005 - 701 Pages

2006 Pulitzer Prize Winner

From the Pulitzer Award Statement 

“Imperial Reckoning is history of the highest order: meticulously researched, brilliantly written, and powerfully dramatic. An unforgettable act of historical re-creation, it is also a disturbing reminder of the brutal imperial precedents that continue to inform Western nations in their drive to democratize the world.”

Imperial Reckoning:  The Untold Story of Britain’s Gulag in Kenya by Caroline Elkins deals with Britain’s response to an uprising by Native Kenyans, primarily of members of the largest ethnic group in the country, the Kikuyu, against British colonial rule. This savage response took the form of eight years of systematic murder, starvation,rape, slave labor, torture and confinement in barbaric camps which Elkins justifiably equates to the Germans in the Holocaust and the Gulags in Stalinist Russia.

To the British the Kenyans who fought for independence, the Mau Maus,  were not freedom fighters but savages, cannibal, rapers of white women.  The English employed Kenyans loyal to them as the foot soldiers in their fight against the Mau Maus.  They bribed them with extra food and gave them the land owned by insurgents. They had license to rape women considered anti English. The English were signers to post World War Two documents on basic human rights but there was no consideration to this at all.  The loyalist troops were lead by British officers, many of whom made sport of killing people with no proofs of any crimes.  Loyalist troops had free rein to rape the women of insurgents, as did many officers.  Often after a woman was gang raped she was murdered so she could no accuse anyone.  

Elkins reveals what England under Churchill and conservative politicians wanted to conceal.  For eight years about 1.5 million Kikuyu, nearly the entire population were kept in detention camps behind barbed wire, guarded by Loyalist non-Kikuyu Kenyans seeking advantage and just delighting in their power.  Estimates of deaths are about 500,000.  Most of the survivors lost everything and had their health destroyed for their remaining life.  Women could often not give birth.

After around 1958 when progressive elements in English society became aware of this the authorities did their best to burn all documents related to their actions.

Elkins details the post English rule of Kenya.

Caroline Elkins is an assistant professor of history at Harvard University. Conversant in Swahili and some Kikuyu, she has spent nearly a decade traveling and working in rural Africa. She and her research were the subjects of a 2002 BBC documentary entitled "Kenya: White Terror." This is her first book.

She lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

She has a second book coming out on March 29, 1196;pages. 

The Legacy of Violence: A History of the British Empire which traces 200 years of race based violence by England against their colonial subjects.

Mel Ulm

Fossil Men: The Quest for the Oldest Skeletons and the Origins of Humankind by Kermit Pattison. - 2020 - 534 pages- Narrative Nonfiction

Fossil Men: The Quest for the Oldest Skeletons and the Origins of Humankind by Kermit Pattison. - 2020- 534 pages- Narrative Nonfiction 

Fossil Men tells the story of the discovery of the fossil remains of human ancestors over a million years older than Lucy, dating back 4.4 million years.

In 1994 a team lead by a maverick genius among fossil hunters Tom White, lead a team in the Afar region of Ethiopia, a dangerous harsh region full of tribes that hated outsiders.

Radiometric dating of nearby rocks indicated the resulting skeleton, classified as Ardipithecus ramidus—nicknamed “Ardi”—was an astounding 4.4 million years old, more than a million years older than the world-famous “Lucy.

White and is team spent 15 years in secrecy researching the finds. His team found many more discoveries. Teaching at the University of California at Berkeley, White was embroiled in bitter disputes with other paleontologists, including the Leakys.

When White at last went public with his findings, they strongly challenged fifty years of orthodox academic doctrine about the origins of humanity. Orthodox paleontologist fought back.  We learn a lot about academic squabbling.

Ethiopian officials made fossil hunting difficult with regulations designed to keep all fossils in Ethiopia.  

Pattinson goes into how we came to walk upright, how we developed nimble fingers and who our ancient ancestors were descended from.  In the process we learn about the evolution of Gorillas and Chimpanzees, their ties to humans.

Pattison brings on stage lots of interesting paleontologists.

Anyone interested in the ancestry of humans will find this book fascinating, as I did.

“Kermit Pattison is the author of Fossil Men: The Quest for the Oldest Skeleton and the Origins of Humankind. He has written for the New York Times, GQ, Inc. and Fast Company. Fossil Men is his first book. He lives with his family in Minnesota.”   https://kermitpattison.com/

This is my first time participating in the Historical Fiction Challenge hosted by The Intrepid Reader.  The rules of the challenge are here

http://www.theintrepidreader.com/2021/12/historical-fiction-reading-challeng.html

Mel Ulm

 

"Milk Bread Beer Ice" - A Short Story by Carol Shields- 11 Pages- Included in The Short Stories of Carol Shields

Buriedinprint.com 

 This year, Buried in Print, a marvelous blog I have followed for over ten years,is doing a read through of the short stories of Carol Shields. I hope to participate fully in this event.

The more I read in the stories of Carol Shields the more grateful I am to Buried in Print for turning me on to her work. There are sixty some stories in the collection, it is my hope to read and post on them all

"Milk Bread Beer Ice" is the 36th story by Carol Shields upon which I have posted.

Like numerous of her other stories this one is about a married couple in their late middle ages on a trip.

"Imprisoned now for five long days in the passenger seat of a brand new Oldsmobile Cutlass, Barbara thinks of herself as a castaway. Her real life has been left behind in Toronto. She and Peter are en route to Houston to attend an estate auction of a late client of Peter’s, a man who ended his life not long ago with a pistol shot. For the sake of the passage, admittedly only two weeks, she has surrendered those routines that make her feel busy and purposeful."

Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom - directed by Stephen Spielberg - 1984-Starring Harrison Ford, Kate Capshaw, Ke Huy Quan, and Amrish Puri.

 Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom - directed by Stephen Spielberg - 1984-Starring Harrison Ford, Kate Capshaw, Ke Huy Quan, and Amrish Puri.

Academy Award for Best Visual Effects 

Available on Amazon Prime Video 

In this second installment of the "Indiana Jones" franchise, Harrison Ford reprises his iconic role of Indiana Jones. After a nightclub deal goes south, Indy and his unlikely companions — singer Willie Scott and street-smart kid Short Round — make a dramatic aerial escape out of Shanghai. Their bad luck doesn’t stop there — they must abandon ship right before their plane crashes spectacularly near a remote village, where the community has been struck by a theft of its sacred stone. Unable to say "no" in the face of adventure, Indy journeys to recover it and comes up against a force more evil than he could have ever imagined.

Indiana Jones and the Raiders of The Lost Ark - Directed by Stephen Spielberg - 1981 - Starring Harrison Ford and Karen Allen

 

               

Indiana Jones and the Raiders of The Lost Ark - Directed by Stephen Spielberg - 1981 - Starring Harrison Ford and Karen Allen

                                  

Who is right Sheldon or Amy? - Season 7, Episode 4 - Big Bang Theory 

The Movie and Big Bang Theory are both Available on Amazon Prime Video on The Max Channel 

"" I found the movie very entertaining except for "the large plot-hole". (Amy) )

Sheldon tells her that it was made by two of the most gifted film makers of our time, Steven Spielberg and George Lucas and has watched it 36 times except for the snakes and the face melting that he won't watch after dark. Sheldon defies her to find a plot-hole to make his jaw drop. Amy explains that if Indiana Jones were not in the movie, the Nazis would still find the Ark of the Covenant, would still have taken it to the island, then opened it up, and all would have died. Sheldon does open his mouth with his jaw hanging and Amy closes his mouth for him."

I found Indiana Jones and the Raiders of The Lost Ark very entertaining and a lot of fun to watch.

Set in 1936, the film stars Harrison Ford as Indiana Jones, a globetrotting archaeologist vying with Nazi German forces to recover the long-lost Ark of the Covenant which is said to make an army invincible. Teaming up with his tough former romantic interest Marion Ravenwood (Karen Allen), Jones races to stop rival archaeologist René Belloq (Paul Freeman) from guiding the Nazis to the Ark and its power..  

Raiders of the Lost Ark is considered one of the greatest films ever made and has had a lasting influence on popular culture, spawning a host of imitators across several media and inspiring other filmmakers. The United States Library of Congress selected it for preservation in the National Film Registry in 1999. Raiders of the Lost Ark is the first entry in what became the Indiana Jones franchise, which includes four more films—Temple of Doom (1984), Last Crusade (1989), Kingdom of the Crystal Skull (2008), and Dial of Destiny (2023)—a television series, video games, comic books, novels, theme park attractions, and toys.

Saving Private Ryan - Directed by Stephen Spielberg - 1998 - Starring Edward Burns, Tom Sizemore, Barry Pepper, Giovanni Ribisi, Vin Diesel, Adam Goldberg and Jeremy Davies.

 Saving Private Ryan - Directed by Stephen Spielberg - 1998 - Starring Edward Burns, Tom Sizemore, Barry Pepper, Giovanni Ribisi, Vin Diesel, Adam Goldberg and Jeremy Davies.

Available on Amazon Prime Video on Max Channel 

Academy Award Winner for Best Director 

Saving Private Ryan is set in 1944 during World War II in France. The film follows a group of American soldiers dispatched to locate Pvt. James Ryan so he can return home after his three brothers have been killed in combat.

In a flashback, the film portrays the first wave of Allied troops landing on Omaha Beach in Nazi-occupied Normandy on D-Day, June 6, 1944, in a 24-minute scene that has been described as one of the most brutal film depictions of war. The invaders incur heavy losses, with soldiers dying onscreen in a variety of grisly and unpredictable ways. As the battle progresses, cameras follow Capt. John Miller (Tom Hanks) as he pushes dazedly through the confusion of battle. Miller and a few survivors are eventually able to breach the German fortifications, clearing the way for subsequent waves of Allied attackers.

In a U.S. War Department office, as secretaries type out a tremendous quantity of condolence letters to the families of those killed in combat, officials become aware that one family in particular, the Ryans of Iowa, are poised to experience an extraordinary loss: three of the family’s four sons have died in combat, with the last remaining son, James, currently in an unknown location behind enemy lines in France. The army officials determine that the sole surviving son must be rescued and shipped home.

Back in France, Miller receives orders to find and rescue Ryan and assembles a group of soldiers to accompany him: Mike Horvath (Tom Sizemore), Richard Reiben (Edward Burns), Adrian Caparzo (Vin Diesel), Stanley Mellish (Adam Goldberg), Daniel Jackson (Barry Pepper), Irwin Wade (Giovanni Ribisi), and Timothy Upham (Jeremy Davies), the last of whom lacks any combat experience.

The film follows the efforts lead by Captain Miller to find Private Ryan.

"Family Secrets" - A Short Sfory by Carol Shields - 15 Pages - included in The Short Stories of Carol Shields- 2002,

 This year, Buried in Print, a marvelous blog I have followed for over ten years,is doing a read through of the short stories of Carol Shields. I hope to participate fully in this event.

The more I read in the stories of Carol Shields the more grateful I am to Buried in Print for turning me on to her work. There are sixty some stories in the collection, it is my hope to read and post on them all.

"Family Secrets" is the 33rd Short Story by Carol Shields upon which I have posted.  It in just 15 pages it follows the lives of a woman  from childhood to late middle ages.  It is narrated through remembrance of conversations. A central issue is why her mother took a year of sick from work prior to marriage.

"I’ve thought lately about that time of sickness; what kind of sickness is it that makes a young woman leave a job and go home to her parents for a whole year? The last time I saw Barclay I said to him, “I think Mom must have got pregnant that year she had to quit her first job.” It took him a minute to figure out what I was talking about. For a man so intelligent he has a poor memory for the details of our childhood. Once I tested him on the color of the garage doors we had at home in Maywood. “Blue,” he said. “No,” I shot back, “brown.”"