Kenya: Promised Land?

About this book

Kenya, with its fertile soils, diverse climate and enterprising people, should be a land of milk and honey. Tourists see safari parks and palm-fringed beaches, luxury hotels and skyscraper offices, but the reality for a growing number of Kenyans is a life of desperate poverty and increasing insecurity. This book explains the origins of the political, economic and social tensions which are causing wide rifts to appear in the fabric of Kenyan society. It contrasts the conspicuous wealth of the ruling elite with the destitution of thousands who have been dispossesed by ethnic conflicts over land rights, or excluded from their traditional lands by wildlife reserves. It celebrates the achievements of communities whose hard work has transformed degraded land, and shows how some of the nation's poorest people are surviving almost entirely on their own resources, on the margins of the Promised Land which seems as far off now as it did during colonial times.

Contents

A land of contrasts; The Great Rift; the bones of our ancestors; Waterfront to the world; Commerce and conquest; The Uganda Railway; Kenya Colony; Independence and after; Kenya at the crossroads; Tea and tourism-coffee and carnations; Smallholders and agribusiness; Pastoralism or 'progress'?; Land and poverty; Land and conflict; Health and education-at a price; City in the sky; Tales of city life; Culture old and new; The impact of tourism; The promise of prosperity; Dates and events; Facts and figures; Sources and further reading; Acknowledgements; Oxfam in Kenya.

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