.jpg)
Rearview Mirror Chronicles
Keith Hockton, FRAS, is a publisher, podcaster, writer and author based in Penang, Malaysia. He is South East Asian Editor for International Living, a lifestyle based magazine. He lectures internationally on history and Malaysia (political and economic), and is passionate about making history fun and accessible to all. Keith is a Fellow of The Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland.
His published books include:
• Atlas of Australian Dive Sites - Travellers Edition (Harper Collins Australia, 2003).
• Penang - An inside guide to its historic homes, buildings, monuments and parks (MPH Publishing, 2012; 2nd Edition 2014; 3rd Edition 2017).
• Festivals of Malaysia (Trafalgar Publishing, 2015).
• The Habitat Penang Hill: A pocket history (Entrepot Publishing, 2018)
• Alana and the Secret Life of Trees at Night (Entrepot Publishing, 2018)
• Penang Then & Now: A Century of Change in Pictures (Entrepot Publishing, 2019; 2nd Edition 2021)
• Bersama Lima - Five Together (Entrepot Publishing, 2022)
Rearview Mirror Chronicles
The Mau Mau - Empire of Blood - Part One
Kenya, 1952. Beneath the surface of the colonial order, something was stirring—something ancient, defiant, and dangerous to the British Empire.
This is the story of the Mau Mau: a secretive and feared movement, bound by a powerful oath of loyalty, land, and blood. An oath whispered in the forests, taken in darkness, and sworn to reclaim stolen soil. For Britain, it was branded as savagery. But for the Kikuyu people, it was a desperate fight for survival.
In this episode, we follow historian Caroline Elkins as she digs into the origins of the rebellion. She uncovers the truth behind the British land grab that dispossessed entire communities. She exposes the empire’s network of detention camps, the calculated use of violence, and the system that turned colonial subjects into suspects—tortured, broken, and silenced.
And then, just as Elkins begins to unearth the full scale of the horror, the files begin to disappear. Archives once promised to researchers are suddenly missing.
Part Two is coming—and with it, the story of a cover-up so vast it reached into the heart of the British state.