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AfD nomination of Sunday Express Dunblane controversy edit

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March 2009 edit

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Caroline Elkins! edit

Hello! It is I, expander of the Mau Mau page! I guard it against our (I'm English) nutty English nationalists and apologists for Empire, and against the occasional pro-Mau Mau loon who shows up.

Whilst agreeing with me that, "The release of the documents seems to vindicate Elkins", you added a citation request for my description of it as an otherwise flawed study.

The "otherwise flawed" description was applied because:

  • Her claims regarding the excess mortality rate during the rebellion were simply ridiculous and have been solidly rebutted
  • Her transparent pro-Mau-Mau bias throughout which, overall, meant the book suffered from a rather unscholarly lack of nuance
  • Her essentially non-existent analysis of the roots and nature of the rebellion (compare with studies like Anderson's)
  • Her reliance, at points, purely on interviews with participants and survivors forty or fifty years after the event—no one's memory is so good that it can be trusted as a sole source of information fifty years after an event

Many, many people were all too happy to draw the line there, however; that is to say, whilst there were some fair criticisms of the book, they were desperate to throw the baby out with the bath water. I've highlighted this myself, because I've not seen a single person who has rightly criticised parts of her book raising their voice against her outstanding analysis of our detention and interrogation systems. Most of that part of the book is relentlessly poured straight out of the archives and the mouths of the people responsible; there can be no basis for any complaint whatsoever with those parts of the book. Just to mention also that Elkins' PhD thesis was on the detention and interrogation systems, so the book has obviously been expanded around her doctorate.

See also my mention of Elkins' on the Mau Mau discussion page here Iloveandrea (talk) 13:54, 22 April 2011 (UTC)Reply