Empire on Trial

The Sippican Historical Society will hold its Annual Meeting on Thursday, June 9 at 7:00 pm at the Marion Music Hall. Caroline Elkins – Pulitzer Prize recipient, Professor of African History at Harvard University and long-time Marion summer resident – will present a lecture, “Empire on Trial.” Professor Elkins’s first book, Imperial Reckoning: The Untold Story of Britain’s Gulag in Kenya, was awarded the 2006 Pulitzer Prize for General Non-Fiction. In her work, she jettisons the notion that the history of the British Empire was one of glory that defined the magnanimous nature of Western civilization. Rather, she systematically outlines how British colonial rule was built upon violence, torture and repeated cover-ups.

Drawing upon Professor Elkins’s revisionist history, elderly Kenyans tortured during the Mau Mau rebellion in the 1950s sued for reparations from the British government almost 50 years later. Filed in the High Court of London in 2009, the case was the first of its kind against the former British Empire. Four years later, the British government settled the matter, formally apologizing for its colonial crimes in Kenya and awarding some £20 million in reparations. Professor Elkins was expert witness for the claimants throughout the case. She was also instrumental in obtaining the claimants’ settlement and in facilitating the initial processes of healing for both nations. Revisionist scholarship and human rights law finally came together with great effect.

The lecture will be illustrated with PowerPoint slides and is free and open to the public.

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