Certainly, the Mau Mau war was a fierce struggle that left blood on the hands of all involved. But in considering the history of this war, we must also consider the issue of scope and scale. On the dreadful balance sheet of atrocities committed during Mau Mau, the murders perpetuated by Mau Mau adherents were quite small in number when compared to those committed by the forces of British colonial rule. Officially, fewer than one hundred Europeans, including settlers, were killed and some eighteen hundred loyalists died at the hands of Mau Mau. In contrast, the British reported that more than eleven thousand Mau Mau were killed in action, though the empirical and demographic evidence I unearthed calls into serious question the validity of this figure. I now believe there was in late colonial Kenya a murderous campaign to eliminate Kikuyu people, a campaign that left tens of thousands, perhaps hundreds of thousands dead.