Timothy H Parsons
Biographic Data
| ID | 147060 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Timothy H Parsons |
| GIVEN NAMES | Timothy H |
| FAMILY NAME | Parsons |
| SIGNATURE | PARSONS T H |
| AFFILIATIONS | Washington University in St. Louis |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 31 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 136 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 29 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 2 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1997 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2019 |
| H-INDEX | 6 |
Mapping Migration, Identity, and Space
The Lost White Tribe
The Lost White Tribe is the history of the idea, or more precisely the myth, that a wave of superior “white” conquerors spread throughout the world at some point in human prehistory. In the Western imagination, this advanced “race” left behind hidden pockets of nobility and civilization in Africa, Asia, and the Americas that awaited discovery by European explorers. Over the course of the nineteenth century, various linguists, scientists, journali…
All askaris are family men
Military planners have long recognized that soldiers' families can strongly influence discipline, morale and effectiveness. In British East Africa, where the coercive force of the King's African Rifles (KAR) underpinned colonial authority, the reliability of rank-and-file askaris was a serious concern. The KAR was so dependent on the domestic labour of women that African NCOs often hired women to care for young, unmarried askaris. Military prosti…
Mau Mau's Army of Clerks
Scholarly and popular histories of Kenya largely agree that African Second World War veterans played a central role in the Kenya Land Freedom Army. Former African members of the colonial security forces have reinforced these assumptions by claiming to have been covert Mau Mau supporters, either after their discharge, or as serving soldiers. In reality, few Mau Mau generals had actual combat experience. Those who served in the colonial military us…
The Unintended Consequences of Bureaucratic ‘Modernization’ in Post–World War II British Africa
Look, young man, if you're going to understand colonial administration, there are two words you will instantly excise from your vocabulary. The first word is ‘bureaucracy’ and the second word is ‘theory’. Without them you'll get on much better. —J. J. Tawney (Director, Oxford Colonial Records Project) to Bruce Berman J. J. Tawney's seemingly dismissive statement about administration in British Africa, which he made to a young academic in 1975, wa…
Empires and Bureaucracy in World History
How did empires rule different peoples across vast expanses of space and time? And how did small numbers of imperial bureaucrats govern large numbers of subordinated peoples? Empires and Bureaucracy in World History seeks answers to these fundamental problems in imperial studies by exploring the power and limits of bureaucracy. The book is pioneering in bringing together historians of antiquity and the Middle Ages with scholars of post-medieval E…
No Country Fit for Heroes
In May 1942, former Private A. K. (G2722) turned up on crutches outside the North Kavirondo district commissioner's office. Having lost his right leg serving with the Second (EA) Pioneer battalion earlier in the war, he rejected the simple peg leg offered by the Kenyan medical authorities and refused to budge until they gave him a more advanced mechanical leg and what the district commissioner termed a “great deal of money” as compensation for hi…
The Military Experiences of Ordinary Africans in World War II
Ordinary African men and women are largely missing from grand narratives of the Second World War. Most histories of the global conflict pay scant attention to Africa and Africans because they focus primarily on the European and Asian theaters, but this lacuna is also due in part to the imperial powers' explicit efforts to downplay and obscure the extent to which they relied on their African subjects to fight and win the war. Faced with severe man…
Africa and World War II
This volume considers the military, economic, and political significance of Africa during World War II. The essays feature new research and innovative approaches to the historiography of Africa and bring to the fore issues of race, gender, and labor during the war, topics that have not yet received much critical attention. It explores the experiences of male and female combatants, peasant producers, women traders, missionaries, and sex workers. T…
Mobilising Britain's African Empire for War
Britain's African territories provided a reservoir of manpower that was heavily exploited during the First World War to aid the imperial war effort. Africans were recruited for service as labourers on the Western Front and, more importantly, staffed the vast logistics organisation that sustained multiple campaigns in Africa. Mobilising African subject populations raised difficult questions about the nature of British rule, particularly the racial…
Manifestations of Imperial Terror in Colonial Kenya
This chapter analyzes political violence in Kenya from the late nineteenth century to the 1960s. In a study of the “pacification campaigns” conducted by the Imperial British East Africa Company against the Kikuyu and Nandi communities at the turn of the twentieth century, the chapter describes the use of spectacular violence on both sides. It then offers an explanation for why there were no major outbursts of political violence during the Kenyan …
The Rule of Empires
Roman Britain
This chapter examines the history of the empire of Roman Britain. It explains that Roman Britain began with Emperor Claudius' state-sponsored invasion to restore the exiled king and Roman client Verica to power during AD 43. It discusses the assimilationist policies of the Romans and the achievements of imperial Rome which served as a touchstone for succeeding western empire builders. This chapter also considers the causes of the collapse of Roma…
British Kenya
This chapter examines the history of the empire of British Kenya. It explains that the Colony and Protectorate of Kenya was under British rule during the period from 1920 to 1963. It discusses the Nandi people's war of attrition against the encroaching British Empire and the shooting of Nandi supreme chief Koitalel Arap Samoei by Richard Meinertzhagen who was on secondment to the King's African Rifles (KAR). This chapter also considers the Britis…
Being Kikuyu in Meru
Faced with a confusing range of fluid ethnicities when they conquered Kenya, colonial officials sought to shift conquered populations into manageable administrative units. In linking physical space to ethnic identity, the Kenyan reserve system assumed that each of these ‘tribes’ had a specific homeland. Yet the reserves in the central Kenyan highlands soon became overcrowded and socially restive because they could not accommodate population growt…
Local Responses to the Ethnic Geography of Colonialism in the Gusii Highlands of British-Ruled Kenya
In an effort to generate labor, protect European settler interests, and rationalize administration, the Kenyan imperial regime sought to impose a new ethnic geography on the African majority that confined communities to specific “native reserves” based on their supposed ethnicity. Theoretically, each “tribe” had a “homeland” that the state set aside for their exclusive use. Problems developed when more populous ethnic groups outgrew their assigne…
Een‐Gonyama Gonyama
British imperialists in the late 19th century denigrated non‐western cultures in rationalising the partition of Africa, but they also had to assimilate African values and traditions to make the imperial system work. The partisans of empire also romanticised non‐western cultures to convince the British public to support the imperial enterprise. In doing so, they introduced significant African and Asian elements into British popular culture, thereb…
African Participation in the British Empire
This chapter shows that Africans did not limit themselves to one particular type of participation in the British empire. Ambitious individuals valued the autonomy and growth potential of the commercial sector and many chiefs, clerks, senior soldiers and policemen, clergymen, and teachers used their earnings and status to acquire land or set up petty trading ventures. The need for African assistance in running the empire in Africa also exposed som…
The Consequences of Uniformity
Journal Article The Consequences of Uniformity: The Struggle for the Boy Scout Uniform in Colonial Kenya Get access Timothy Parsons Timothy Parsons Department of History, Washington University in St. Louis, African and African American Studies Program, St. Louis, MO 63130-4899 Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of Social History, Volume 40, Issue 2, Winter 2006, Pages 361–383, https://doi.org/10.1353/…
No More English than the Postal System
Timothy H. Parsons, No More English than the Postal System: The Kenya Boy Scout Movement and the Transfer of Power, Africa Today, Vol. 51, No. 3, Youth and Citizenship in East Africa (Spring, 2005), pp. 61-80
KiKAR
The paper discusses attitudes, identity construction, agents of linguistic change, and the outcome of dense language contact in Kenya's colonial army during the early decades of the twentieth century. The growth and development of a simplified Swahili variety in the Kenyan battalions of the King's African Rifles (KAR) during the inter-war period was influenced by the European officers' attitude towards Africans and their languages, the military's…
The 1964 Army Mutinies and the Making of Modern East Africa
The 1964 Army Mutinies and the Making of Modern East Africa
Framing the Rational in Fieldwork
The Lanet Incident, 2-25 January, 1964
During the last week of January 1964, the armies of Tanganyika, Uganda, and Kenya struck in rapid succession. Bound together by a common legacy of service in Britain's East African colonial army, the King's African Rifles (KAR), the soldiers demanded higher pay and the removal of expatriate British officers from the newly established national armies. In Kenya, the men of the 11th Battalion of the Kenya Rifles broke into the armory at Lanet Barrac…
The African Rank-and-File
The King's African Rifles recruiting and the doctrine of martial race military life army women and military families discipline and resistance ex-servicemen
Kibra Is Our Blood
The 1964 Army Mutinies and the Making of Modern East Africa
The African Rank and File
Being Kikuyu in Meru
Faced with a confusing range of fluid ethnicities when they conquered Kenya, colonial officials sought to shift conquered populations into manageable administrative units. In linking physical space to ethnic identity, the Kenyan reserve system assumed that each of these ‘tribes’ had a specific homeland. Yet the reserves in the central Kenyan highlands soon became overcrowded and socially restive because they could not accommodate population growt…
Local Responses to the Ethnic Geography of Colonialism in the Gusii Highlands of British-Ruled Kenya
In an effort to generate labor, protect European settler interests, and rationalize administration, the Kenyan imperial regime sought to impose a new ethnic geography on the African majority that confined communities to specific “native reserves” based on their supposed ethnicity. Theoretically, each “tribe” had a “homeland” that the state set aside for their exclusive use. Problems developed when more populous ethnic groups outgrew their assigne…
Dangerous education? The army as school in colonial East Africa
Mau Mau's Army of Clerks
Scholarly and popular histories of Kenya largely agree that African Second World War veterans played a central role in the Kenya Land Freedom Army. Former African members of the colonial security forces have reinforced these assumptions by claiming to have been covert Mau Mau supporters, either after their discharge, or as serving soldiers. In reality, few Mau Mau generals had actual combat experience. Those who served in the colonial military us…
No More English than the Postal System
Timothy H. Parsons, No More English than the Postal System: The Kenya Boy Scout Movement and the Transfer of Power, Africa Today, Vol. 51, No. 3, Youth and Citizenship in East Africa (Spring, 2005), pp. 61-80
Mobilising Britain's African Empire for War
Britain's African territories provided a reservoir of manpower that was heavily exploited during the First World War to aid the imperial war effort. Africans were recruited for service as labourers on the Western Front and, more importantly, staffed the vast logistics organisation that sustained multiple campaigns in Africa. Mobilising African subject populations raised difficult questions about the nature of British rule, particularly the racial…
The Consequences of Uniformity
Journal Article The Consequences of Uniformity: The Struggle for the Boy Scout Uniform in Colonial Kenya Get access Timothy Parsons Timothy Parsons Department of History, Washington University in St. Louis, African and African American Studies Program, St. Louis, MO 63130-4899 Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of Social History, Volume 40, Issue 2, Winter 2006, Pages 361–383, https://doi.org/10.1353/…
Een‐Gonyama Gonyama
British imperialists in the late 19th century denigrated non‐western cultures in rationalising the partition of Africa, but they also had to assimilate African values and traditions to make the imperial system work. The partisans of empire also romanticised non‐western cultures to convince the British public to support the imperial enterprise. In doing so, they introduced significant African and Asian elements into British popular culture, thereb…
KiKAR
The paper discusses attitudes, identity construction, agents of linguistic change, and the outcome of dense language contact in Kenya's colonial army during the early decades of the twentieth century. The growth and development of a simplified Swahili variety in the Kenyan battalions of the King's African Rifles (KAR) during the inter-war period was influenced by the European officers' attitude towards Africans and their languages, the military's…
The 1964 Army Mutinies and the Making of Modern East Africa
Kibra Is Our Blood
Good Citizens
"Good Citizens: British Missionaries and Imperial States, 1870-1918, by James G. Greenlee and Charles M. Johnston.." Canadian Journal of History, 35(3), pp. 618–619
Dangerous education? The army as school in colonial East Africa
The African Rank-and-File
The King's African Rifles recruiting and the doctrine of martial race military life army women and military families discipline and resistance ex-servicemen
The African Rank and File
The Thin Black Line of Heroes
Framing the Rational in Fieldwork
The 1964 Army Mutinies and the Making of Modern East Africa
KiKAR
The paper discusses attitudes, identity construction, agents of linguistic change, and the outcome of dense language contact in Kenya's colonial army during the early decades of the twentieth century. The growth and development of a simplified Swahili variety in the Kenyan battalions of the King's African Rifles (KAR) during the inter-war period was influenced by the European officers' attitude towards Africans and their languages, the military's…
The 1964 Army Mutinies and the Making of Modern East Africa
No More English than the Postal System
Timothy H. Parsons, No More English than the Postal System: The Kenya Boy Scout Movement and the Transfer of Power, Africa Today, Vol. 51, No. 3, Youth and Citizenship in East Africa (Spring, 2005), pp. 61-80
African Participation in the British Empire
This chapter shows that Africans did not limit themselves to one particular type of participation in the British empire. Ambitious individuals valued the autonomy and growth potential of the commercial sector and many chiefs, clerks, senior soldiers and policemen, clergymen, and teachers used their earnings and status to acquire land or set up petty trading ventures. The need for African assistance in running the empire in Africa also exposed som…
The Consequences of Uniformity
Journal Article The Consequences of Uniformity: The Struggle for the Boy Scout Uniform in Colonial Kenya Get access Timothy Parsons Timothy Parsons Department of History, Washington University in St. Louis, African and African American Studies Program, St. Louis, MO 63130-4899 Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Journal of Social History, Volume 40, Issue 2, Winter 2006, Pages 361–383, https://doi.org/10.1353/…
Een‐Gonyama Gonyama
British imperialists in the late 19th century denigrated non‐western cultures in rationalising the partition of Africa, but they also had to assimilate African values and traditions to make the imperial system work. The partisans of empire also romanticised non‐western cultures to convince the British public to support the imperial enterprise. In doing so, they introduced significant African and Asian elements into British popular culture, thereb…
Local Responses to the Ethnic Geography of Colonialism in the Gusii Highlands of British-Ruled Kenya
In an effort to generate labor, protect European settler interests, and rationalize administration, the Kenyan imperial regime sought to impose a new ethnic geography on the African majority that confined communities to specific “native reserves” based on their supposed ethnicity. Theoretically, each “tribe” had a “homeland” that the state set aside for their exclusive use. Problems developed when more populous ethnic groups outgrew their assigne…
The Rule of Empires
Roman Britain
This chapter examines the history of the empire of Roman Britain. It explains that Roman Britain began with Emperor Claudius' state-sponsored invasion to restore the exiled king and Roman client Verica to power during AD 43. It discusses the assimilationist policies of the Romans and the achievements of imperial Rome which served as a touchstone for succeeding western empire builders. This chapter also considers the causes of the collapse of Roma…
British Kenya
This chapter examines the history of the empire of British Kenya. It explains that the Colony and Protectorate of Kenya was under British rule during the period from 1920 to 1963. It discusses the Nandi people's war of attrition against the encroaching British Empire and the shooting of Nandi supreme chief Koitalel Arap Samoei by Richard Meinertzhagen who was on secondment to the King's African Rifles (KAR). This chapter also considers the Britis…
Being Kikuyu in Meru
Faced with a confusing range of fluid ethnicities when they conquered Kenya, colonial officials sought to shift conquered populations into manageable administrative units. In linking physical space to ethnic identity, the Kenyan reserve system assumed that each of these ‘tribes’ had a specific homeland. Yet the reserves in the central Kenyan highlands soon became overcrowded and socially restive because they could not accommodate population growt…
Manifestations of Imperial Terror in Colonial Kenya
This chapter analyzes political violence in Kenya from the late nineteenth century to the 1960s. In a study of the “pacification campaigns” conducted by the Imperial British East Africa Company against the Kikuyu and Nandi communities at the turn of the twentieth century, the chapter describes the use of spectacular violence on both sides. It then offers an explanation for why there were no major outbursts of political violence during the Kenyan …
No Country Fit for Heroes
In May 1942, former Private A. K. (G2722) turned up on crutches outside the North Kavirondo district commissioner's office. Having lost his right leg serving with the Second (EA) Pioneer battalion earlier in the war, he rejected the simple peg leg offered by the Kenyan medical authorities and refused to budge until they gave him a more advanced mechanical leg and what the district commissioner termed a “great deal of money” as compensation for hi…
The Military Experiences of Ordinary Africans in World War II
Ordinary African men and women are largely missing from grand narratives of the Second World War. Most histories of the global conflict pay scant attention to Africa and Africans because they focus primarily on the European and Asian theaters, but this lacuna is also due in part to the imperial powers' explicit efforts to downplay and obscure the extent to which they relied on their African subjects to fight and win the war. Faced with severe man…
Africa and World War II
This volume considers the military, economic, and political significance of Africa during World War II. The essays feature new research and innovative approaches to the historiography of Africa and bring to the fore issues of race, gender, and labor during the war, topics that have not yet received much critical attention. It explores the experiences of male and female combatants, peasant producers, women traders, missionaries, and sex workers. T…
Mobilising Britain's African Empire for War
Britain's African territories provided a reservoir of manpower that was heavily exploited during the First World War to aid the imperial war effort. Africans were recruited for service as labourers on the Western Front and, more importantly, staffed the vast logistics organisation that sustained multiple campaigns in Africa. Mobilising African subject populations raised difficult questions about the nature of British rule, particularly the racial…
The Unintended Consequences of Bureaucratic ‘Modernization’ in Post–World War II British Africa
Look, young man, if you're going to understand colonial administration, there are two words you will instantly excise from your vocabulary. The first word is ‘bureaucracy’ and the second word is ‘theory’. Without them you'll get on much better. —J. J. Tawney (Director, Oxford Colonial Records Project) to Bruce Berman J. J. Tawney's seemingly dismissive statement about administration in British Africa, which he made to a young academic in 1975, wa…
History (24 works) · Political science (24 works) · African history and culture studies (22 works) · Colonialism (16 works) · Law (15 works) · Sociology (14 works) · Archaeology (13 works) · Ancient history (12 works) · History (10 works) · Politics (10 works)