The Souls of White Folk
White Settlers in Kenya, 1900s–1920s
Manchester University Press · Print & ebook · January 3, 2017
Kenya’s white settlers have been alternately celebrated and condemned, painted as romantic pioneers or hedonistic bed-hoppers or crude racists.
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- Who it’s for
- Brett Shadle examines how white settlers in Kenya understood themselves and enacted claims to supremacy.
- Genres
- East African History, Colonialism & Its Aftermath, Race & Discrimination
- Published
- Manchester University Press, January 3, 2017
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Kenya’s white settlers have been alternately celebrated and condemned, painted as romantic pioneers or hedonistic bed-hoppers or crude racists. The souls of white folk examines settlers not as caricatures, but as people inhabiting a unique historical moment. It takes seriously – though not uncritically – what settlers said, how they viewed themselves and their world.
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It argues that the settler soul was composed of a series of interlaced ideas: settlers equated civilisation with a (hard to define) whiteness; they were emotionally enriched through claims to paternalism and trusteeship over Africans; they felt themselves constantly threatened by Africans, by the state, and by the moral failures of other settlers; and they daily enacted their claims to supremacy through rituals of prestige, deference, humiliation and violence. The souls of white folk will appeal to those interested in the histories of Africa, colonialism, and race, and can be appreciated by scholars and students alike.
Settler Self-Understanding
Brett Shadle examines how white settlers in Kenya understood themselves and enacted claims to supremacy.
Come here for
- Settlers’ ideas about whiteness, civilisation, paternalism, and trusteeship
- Rituals of prestige, deference, humiliation, and violence
Expect
- A critical account of settler self-understanding in the 1900s–1920s
- Attention to perceived threats from Africans, the state, and other settlers
Where it sits
| East African History | 76% |
|---|---|
| Colonialism & Its Aftermath | 72% |
| Race & Discrimination | 63% |
Percentages are BookFrontier’s reading of the book.
Publisher categories
- East African History
- Colonialism & Its Aftermath
- Authors
- Brett Shadle, Brett L. Shadle
- Publisher
- Manchester University Press
- Published
- January 3, 2017
- Format
- Print & ebook
- Reading lane
- East African History