KENYA: The Oath Takers

Of all the colonial revolts that have convulsed Asia and Africa since World War II, none have matched Kenya's Mau Mau movement for sheer grisliness. In seven years of terror beginning in the autumn of 1952, 95 Europeans, 29 Asians and 12,423 Africans were slain by methods ranging from merciful garroting to having their heads bashed in and their brains removed, dried and ritually eaten. Last week the British finally got around to releasing the first complete and authoritative account of the Mau Mau disaster—an almost clinically detached, 322-page report by Career Colonial Administrator...