Mau Mau Crucible of War is a study of the social and cultural history of the mentalite of struggle in Kenya which reached a high water mark during the Mau Mau war of the 1950s but which continues to resonate in Kenya today in the ongoing demand for a decent standard of living and social justice for all This work catalyzes intellectual debate in various disciplines regarding not just the evolution of the Kenyan state but also the state in Africa It not only engages historians of colonial and postcolonial economic and political history but also sociologists anthropologists political scientists and those who study personality and social branches of psychology postcolonialism and postmodernity social movements armed conflict specialists and conflict resolution analysts