Facing Mount Kenya.: The Tribal Life of the Gikuyu. With an introduction by B. Malinowski, Professor of Anthropology in the University of London.

London: Secker and Warburg,, 1938. First edition, first impression, of this anthropological study of the people of the Kikuyu ethnicity of central Kenya, written by native Kikuyu and future first Kenyan president Jomo Kenyatta (c.1897-1978). In the 1930s, Kenyatta attended the London School of Economics, where he was taught social anthropology by Malinowski. Over the course of his studies, he and Malinowski became close friends. Kenyatta's book is based on his essays on Kikuyu society written for Malinowski's class and reflects Kenyatta's desire to use anthropology as a weapon against colonialism. Although the book sold only 517 copies, it was generally well received, except among white Kenyans, whose assumptions that the Kikuyu were primitive savages in need of European civilization it challenged. Murray-Brown later described it as "a propaganda tour de force. No other African had made such an uncompromising stand for tribal integrity." Octavo. Original orange cloth, titles in gilt on green ground to spine, top edge orange. Photographic frontispiece, 7 other photographic plates, map and occasional in-text illustrations. Inscription of "Ruth Harris" to front free endpaper. Foxing to spine and edges, spine and top edge sunned, contents clean: a very good copy. Murray-Brown 1974, p. 192.