Daniel Branch
Biographic Data
| ID | 112458 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Daniel Branch |
| GIVEN NAMES | Daniel |
| FAMILY NAME | Branch |
| SIGNATURE | BRANCH D |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Warwick |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 18 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 168 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 17 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2005 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 7 |
A Man of the World: Tom Mboya, the Cold War and Decolonization in Kenya
Tom Mboya was one of the most important global political figures of the age of decolonisation. Widely acknowledged to be a member of the top tier of African nationalist leaders, he was also one of Kenya's founding fathers. Using Mboya's papers in addition to several other archives, Daniel Branch demonstrates how much of his political success at home and abroad was derived from his cultivation and adept use of an extensive international network of…
Unwanted Friends: Loyalty and Citizenship in Britain’s Imperial Wars, 1899–1960
This chapter considers the role and significance of loyalists in Britain’s imperial wars from the South African War of 1899–1902 to the wars of decolonization fought in Kenya, Cyprus, and Malaya. It draws upon archival research carried out in the United Kingdom, South Africa, Kenya, and Singapore to demonstrate the various motivations of loyalty by imperial subjects during periods of anti-colonial rebellion. The chapter argues against an assumpti…
Public letters and the culture of politics in Kenya, c.1960-75
Despite only a minority of Kenya’s African population being literate at the time of independence, letter-writing constituted a significant form of engagement between grassroots political participants and national leaders during decolonisation. This paper sets out to ask why individuals and collaborative groups of writers sent large quantities of letters to their leaders, what they wrote about, and their expectations of the effect of their corresp…
Another World? East Africa, Decolonisation, and the Global History of the Mid-Twentieth Century
This article proposes that there is a gap in our current understanding of the globalising and deglobalising dynamics of mid-twentieth-century East Africa, one that might be addressed by consolidating and taking forward recent developments in the historiography of decolonisation. Recent work by international historians has recovered the connected world of the 1940s to 1960s: the era of new postcolonial states, the ‘Bandung moment’, pan-African coo…
Political Traffic: Kenyan Students in Eastern and Central Europe, 1958–69
This article explores the experiences of Kenyan students in the Soviet Union, Bulgaria and other communist states between 1958 and 1969. Existing studies of student mobility from Kenya in this period have concentrated on the experiences of students in the USA, a theme familiar to many readers because of Barack Obama’s family history. By contrast, and by using recently released sources from the British archives and material from Tom Mboya's papers…
Allies at the End of Empire: Loyalists, Nationalists and the Cold War, 1945–76
Allies at the End of Empire: Loyalists, Nationalists and the Cold War, 1945-76
Allies at the End of Empire—Loyalists, Nationalists and the Cold War, 1945–76
The wars of decolonization fought by European colonial powers after 1945 had their origins in the fraught history of imperial domination, but were framed and shaped by the emerging politics of the Cold War. Militia recruited from amongst the local population was a common feature in all the counter-insurgencies mounted against armed nationalist risings in this period. Styled here as ‘loyalists’, these militia fought against nationalists. Loyalist …
Violence, decolonisation and the Cold War in Kenya's north-eastern province, 1963-1978
The paper explores the extent to which other domestic political matters and post-colonial ties to Britain shaped the Kenyan Government's actions in northern Kenya between independence in 1963 and the death of President Jomo Kenyatta in 1978. The paper has a particular emphasis on the Shifta War of 1963–1967. Disputes between rival nationalist leaders at independence and doubts about the loyalty of the armed forces meant Kenyatta concentrated on p…
The Search for the Remains of Dedan Kimathi: The Politics of Death and Memorialization in Post-Colonial Kenya
Journal Article The Search for the Remains of Dedan Kimathi: The Politics of Death and Memorialization in Post-Colonial Kenya Get access Daniel Branch Daniel Branch Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Past & Present, Volume 206, Issue suppl_5, 2010, Pages 301–320, https://doi.org/10.1093/pastj/gtq022 Published: 17 July 2010
Footprints in the Sand: British Colonial Counterinsurgency and the War in Iraq
Recent attempts to revive counterinsurgency strategies for use in Afghanistan and Iraq have been marked by a determination to learn lessons from history. Using the case of the campaign against the Mau Mau insurgency in Kenya of 1952-60, this article considers the reasons for this engagement with the past and the issues that have emerged as a consequence. The article disputes the lessons from British colonial history that have been learned by mili…
Revisiting Counterinsurgency
Democratization, sequencing, and state failure in Africa: Lessons from Kenya
In order to complement ongoing current empirical research, this article draws wider lessons from the crisis that grew out of the disputed Kenyan presidential election of December 2007. Looking beyond the immediate trigger for the subsequent violence – namely, the election itself – the paper instead locates the roots of the crisis within three historical trends: elite fragmentation, political liberalization, and state informalization.The origins o…
The Enemy Within: Loyalists and the War Against Mau Mau in Kenya
Between 1952 and 1960, the British colonial government of Kenya waged a violent counter-insurgency campaign against the Mau Mau rebels. In this effort the regime was assisted by collaborators, known as loyalists, drawn from the same communities as the insurgents. Based primarily on new archival sources, this article sets out the history of loyalism, stresses the ambiguity of allegiances during the conflict and argues that loyalism was a product o…
African Womanhood in Colonial Kenya, 1900-50 (review)
Tabitha Kanogo, African Womanhood in Colonial Kenya, 1900–50. Oxford: James Currey (pb £16.95 – 0 8214 1568 9); Athens, OH: Ohio University Press (pb $24.95 – 0 8214 1568 9); Nairobi: East African Educational Publishers (price not stated), 2005, 272 pp. - Volume 76 Issue 3
The politics of control in Kenya: Understanding the bureaucratic-executive state, 1952-78
Colonial rule in Kenya witnessed the emergence of a profoundly unbalanced institutional landscape. With all capacity resided in a strong prefectural provincial administration, political parties remained underdeveloped. The co-option of sympathetic African elites during the colonial twilight into the bureaucracy, the legislature and the private property-based economy meant that the allies of colonialism and representatives of transnational capital…
Loyalists, Mau Mau, and Elections in Kenya: The First Triumph of the System, 1957-1958
In 1957 and 1958, elections were held across Kenya for seats within the colony's Legislative Council. In Central Province, these elections took place in the aftermath of the Mau Mau rebellion. Following the insurgents' military defeat, the colonial government turned to ensuring the political victory of its African allies and the disenfranchisement of Mau Mau sympathizers. It achieved its aim by restricting the vote to elites and those who could p…
Briefing: Using opinion polls to evaluate Kenyan politics, March 2004-January 2005
Journal Article Briefing: Using opinion polls to evaluate Kenyan politics, March 2004–January 2005 Get access Daniel Branch, Daniel Branch Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Nic Cheeseman Nic Cheeseman Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar African Affairs, Volume 104, Issue 415, April 2005, Pages 325–336, https://doi.org/10.1093/afraf/adi037 Published: 01 April 2005
The politics of control in Kenya: Understanding the bureaucratic-executive state, 1952-78
Colonial rule in Kenya witnessed the emergence of a profoundly unbalanced institutional landscape. With all capacity resided in a strong prefectural provincial administration, political parties remained underdeveloped. The co-option of sympathetic African elites during the colonial twilight into the bureaucracy, the legislature and the private property-based economy meant that the allies of colonialism and representatives of transnational capital…
Democratization, sequencing, and state failure in Africa: Lessons from Kenya
In order to complement ongoing current empirical research, this article draws wider lessons from the crisis that grew out of the disputed Kenyan presidential election of December 2007. Looking beyond the immediate trigger for the subsequent violence – namely, the election itself – the paper instead locates the roots of the crisis within three historical trends: elite fragmentation, political liberalization, and state informalization.The origins o…
Revisiting Counterinsurgency
The Enemy Within: Loyalists and the War Against Mau Mau in Kenya
Between 1952 and 1960, the British colonial government of Kenya waged a violent counter-insurgency campaign against the Mau Mau rebels. In this effort the regime was assisted by collaborators, known as loyalists, drawn from the same communities as the insurgents. Based primarily on new archival sources, this article sets out the history of loyalism, stresses the ambiguity of allegiances during the conflict and argues that loyalism was a product o…
Footprints in the Sand: British Colonial Counterinsurgency and the War in Iraq
Recent attempts to revive counterinsurgency strategies for use in Afghanistan and Iraq have been marked by a determination to learn lessons from history. Using the case of the campaign against the Mau Mau insurgency in Kenya of 1952-60, this article considers the reasons for this engagement with the past and the issues that have emerged as a consequence. The article disputes the lessons from British colonial history that have been learned by mili…
The Search for the Remains of Dedan Kimathi: The Politics of Death and Memorialization in Post-Colonial Kenya
Journal Article The Search for the Remains of Dedan Kimathi: The Politics of Death and Memorialization in Post-Colonial Kenya Get access Daniel Branch Daniel Branch Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Past & Present, Volume 206, Issue suppl_5, 2010, Pages 301–320, https://doi.org/10.1093/pastj/gtq022 Published: 17 July 2010
Violence, decolonisation and the Cold War in Kenya's north-eastern province, 1963-1978
The paper explores the extent to which other domestic political matters and post-colonial ties to Britain shaped the Kenyan Government's actions in northern Kenya between independence in 1963 and the death of President Jomo Kenyatta in 1978. The paper has a particular emphasis on the Shifta War of 1963–1967. Disputes between rival nationalist leaders at independence and doubts about the loyalty of the armed forces meant Kenyatta concentrated on p…
Political Traffic: Kenyan Students in Eastern and Central Europe, 1958–69
This article explores the experiences of Kenyan students in the Soviet Union, Bulgaria and other communist states between 1958 and 1969. Existing studies of student mobility from Kenya in this period have concentrated on the experiences of students in the USA, a theme familiar to many readers because of Barack Obama’s family history. By contrast, and by using recently released sources from the British archives and material from Tom Mboya's papers…
Loyalists, Mau Mau, and Elections in Kenya: The First Triumph of the System, 1957-1958
In 1957 and 1958, elections were held across Kenya for seats within the colony's Legislative Council. In Central Province, these elections took place in the aftermath of the Mau Mau rebellion. Following the insurgents' military defeat, the colonial government turned to ensuring the political victory of its African allies and the disenfranchisement of Mau Mau sympathizers. It achieved its aim by restricting the vote to elites and those who could p…
Briefing: Using opinion polls to evaluate Kenyan politics, March 2004-January 2005
Journal Article Briefing: Using opinion polls to evaluate Kenyan politics, March 2004–January 2005 Get access Daniel Branch, Daniel Branch Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Nic Cheeseman Nic Cheeseman Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar African Affairs, Volume 104, Issue 415, April 2005, Pages 325–336, https://doi.org/10.1093/afraf/adi037 Published: 01 April 2005
Another World? East Africa, Decolonisation, and the Global History of the Mid-Twentieth Century
This article proposes that there is a gap in our current understanding of the globalising and deglobalising dynamics of mid-twentieth-century East Africa, one that might be addressed by consolidating and taking forward recent developments in the historiography of decolonisation. Recent work by international historians has recovered the connected world of the 1940s to 1960s: the era of new postcolonial states, the ‘Bandung moment’, pan-African coo…
Public letters and the culture of politics in Kenya, c.1960-75
Despite only a minority of Kenya’s African population being literate at the time of independence, letter-writing constituted a significant form of engagement between grassroots political participants and national leaders during decolonisation. This paper sets out to ask why individuals and collaborative groups of writers sent large quantities of letters to their leaders, what they wrote about, and their expectations of the effect of their corresp…
Allies at the End of Empire—Loyalists, Nationalists and the Cold War, 1945–76
The wars of decolonization fought by European colonial powers after 1945 had their origins in the fraught history of imperial domination, but were framed and shaped by the emerging politics of the Cold War. Militia recruited from amongst the local population was a common feature in all the counter-insurgencies mounted against armed nationalist risings in this period. Styled here as ‘loyalists’, these militia fought against nationalists. Loyalist …
Briefing: Using opinion polls to evaluate Kenyan politics, March 2004-January 2005
Journal Article Briefing: Using opinion polls to evaluate Kenyan politics, March 2004–January 2005 Get access Daniel Branch, Daniel Branch Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Nic Cheeseman Nic Cheeseman Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar African Affairs, Volume 104, Issue 415, April 2005, Pages 325–336, https://doi.org/10.1093/afraf/adi037 Published: 01 April 2005
African Womanhood in Colonial Kenya, 1900-50 (review)
Tabitha Kanogo, African Womanhood in Colonial Kenya, 1900–50. Oxford: James Currey (pb £16.95 – 0 8214 1568 9); Athens, OH: Ohio University Press (pb $24.95 – 0 8214 1568 9); Nairobi: East African Educational Publishers (price not stated), 2005, 272 pp. - Volume 76 Issue 3
The politics of control in Kenya: Understanding the bureaucratic-executive state, 1952-78
Colonial rule in Kenya witnessed the emergence of a profoundly unbalanced institutional landscape. With all capacity resided in a strong prefectural provincial administration, political parties remained underdeveloped. The co-option of sympathetic African elites during the colonial twilight into the bureaucracy, the legislature and the private property-based economy meant that the allies of colonialism and representatives of transnational capital…
Loyalists, Mau Mau, and Elections in Kenya: The First Triumph of the System, 1957-1958
In 1957 and 1958, elections were held across Kenya for seats within the colony's Legislative Council. In Central Province, these elections took place in the aftermath of the Mau Mau rebellion. Following the insurgents' military defeat, the colonial government turned to ensuring the political victory of its African allies and the disenfranchisement of Mau Mau sympathizers. It achieved its aim by restricting the vote to elites and those who could p…
The Enemy Within: Loyalists and the War Against Mau Mau in Kenya
Between 1952 and 1960, the British colonial government of Kenya waged a violent counter-insurgency campaign against the Mau Mau rebels. In this effort the regime was assisted by collaborators, known as loyalists, drawn from the same communities as the insurgents. Based primarily on new archival sources, this article sets out the history of loyalism, stresses the ambiguity of allegiances during the conflict and argues that loyalism was a product o…
Democratization, sequencing, and state failure in Africa: Lessons from Kenya
In order to complement ongoing current empirical research, this article draws wider lessons from the crisis that grew out of the disputed Kenyan presidential election of December 2007. Looking beyond the immediate trigger for the subsequent violence – namely, the election itself – the paper instead locates the roots of the crisis within three historical trends: elite fragmentation, political liberalization, and state informalization.The origins o…
The Search for the Remains of Dedan Kimathi: The Politics of Death and Memorialization in Post-Colonial Kenya
Journal Article The Search for the Remains of Dedan Kimathi: The Politics of Death and Memorialization in Post-Colonial Kenya Get access Daniel Branch Daniel Branch Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Past & Present, Volume 206, Issue suppl_5, 2010, Pages 301–320, https://doi.org/10.1093/pastj/gtq022 Published: 17 July 2010
Footprints in the Sand: British Colonial Counterinsurgency and the War in Iraq
Recent attempts to revive counterinsurgency strategies for use in Afghanistan and Iraq have been marked by a determination to learn lessons from history. Using the case of the campaign against the Mau Mau insurgency in Kenya of 1952-60, this article considers the reasons for this engagement with the past and the issues that have emerged as a consequence. The article disputes the lessons from British colonial history that have been learned by mili…
Revisiting Counterinsurgency
Violence, decolonisation and the Cold War in Kenya's north-eastern province, 1963-1978
The paper explores the extent to which other domestic political matters and post-colonial ties to Britain shaped the Kenyan Government's actions in northern Kenya between independence in 1963 and the death of President Jomo Kenyatta in 1978. The paper has a particular emphasis on the Shifta War of 1963–1967. Disputes between rival nationalist leaders at independence and doubts about the loyalty of the armed forces meant Kenyatta concentrated on p…
Allies at the End of Empire—Loyalists, Nationalists and the Cold War, 1945–76
The wars of decolonization fought by European colonial powers after 1945 had their origins in the fraught history of imperial domination, but were framed and shaped by the emerging politics of the Cold War. Militia recruited from amongst the local population was a common feature in all the counter-insurgencies mounted against armed nationalist risings in this period. Styled here as ‘loyalists’, these militia fought against nationalists. Loyalist …
Allies at the End of Empire: Loyalists, Nationalists and the Cold War, 1945–76
Allies at the End of Empire: Loyalists, Nationalists and the Cold War, 1945-76
Political Traffic: Kenyan Students in Eastern and Central Europe, 1958–69
This article explores the experiences of Kenyan students in the Soviet Union, Bulgaria and other communist states between 1958 and 1969. Existing studies of student mobility from Kenya in this period have concentrated on the experiences of students in the USA, a theme familiar to many readers because of Barack Obama’s family history. By contrast, and by using recently released sources from the British archives and material from Tom Mboya's papers…
Public letters and the culture of politics in Kenya, c.1960-75
Despite only a minority of Kenya’s African population being literate at the time of independence, letter-writing constituted a significant form of engagement between grassroots political participants and national leaders during decolonisation. This paper sets out to ask why individuals and collaborative groups of writers sent large quantities of letters to their leaders, what they wrote about, and their expectations of the effect of their corresp…
Another World? East Africa, Decolonisation, and the Global History of the Mid-Twentieth Century
This article proposes that there is a gap in our current understanding of the globalising and deglobalising dynamics of mid-twentieth-century East Africa, one that might be addressed by consolidating and taking forward recent developments in the historiography of decolonisation. Recent work by international historians has recovered the connected world of the 1940s to 1960s: the era of new postcolonial states, the ‘Bandung moment’, pan-African coo…
Unwanted Friends: Loyalty and Citizenship in Britain’s Imperial Wars, 1899–1960
This chapter considers the role and significance of loyalists in Britain’s imperial wars from the South African War of 1899–1902 to the wars of decolonization fought in Kenya, Cyprus, and Malaya. It draws upon archival research carried out in the United Kingdom, South Africa, Kenya, and Singapore to demonstrate the various motivations of loyalty by imperial subjects during periods of anti-colonial rebellion. The chapter argues against an assumpti…
A Man of the World: Tom Mboya, the Cold War and Decolonization in Kenya
Tom Mboya was one of the most important global political figures of the age of decolonisation. Widely acknowledged to be a member of the top tier of African nationalist leaders, he was also one of Kenya's founding fathers. Using Mboya's papers in addition to several other archives, Daniel Branch demonstrates how much of his political success at home and abroad was derived from his cultivation and adept use of an extensive international network of…
Political science (16 works) · Law (14 works) · Politics (14 works) · Law (11 works) · Colonialism (10 works) · Sociology (10 works) · African history and culture studies (9 works) · History (8 works) · Ancient history (6 works) · Decolonization (6 works)