John Lonsdale

John M. Lonsdale (born 1937) is a British Africanist and historian. He is Emeritus Professor of Modern African History at the Centre of African Studies in the Faculty of History at the University of Cambridge.

As a schoolboy, Lonsdale spent three summer holidays during 1953–56 in Kenya where his father, Rupert Lonsdale, had just taken a job. Having attended Sherborne School in Dorset, in 1956 he started his national service as a subaltern in the King's African Rifles. He then went on to study history at Trinity College, Cambridge, completing a BA in 1961 and a PhD in 1964. His first teaching job was at the University of Dar es Salaam in 1964. Although retired from teaching, he remains a life fellow (Title E) of Trinity College, Cambridge.

Publications Professor Lonsdale published many journal articles, books and book chapters including

A political history of Nyanza, 1883–1945, PhD thesis University of Cambridge 1964 Some Origins of Nationalism in East Africa, The Journal of African History 9 (1968), 119 – 146, Cambridge University Press Coping with the Contradictions: the Development of the Colonial State in Kenya, 1895-1914 by Bruce Berman and John Lonsdale, The Journal of African History 20 (1979), 487–505 The growth and transformation of the colonial state in Kenya, 1929–52, University of Nairobi, Dept. of History, , Series: Staff seminar paper (University of Nairobi. Department of History), 79/80, n. 17 Explanation of the Mau Mau revolt, Johannesburg : University of the Witwatersrand, 1983 Kikuyu political thought and the ideologies of Mau Mau, Los Angeles (California), African Studies Association, 1986 Mau Mau through the Looking Glass, Index on Censorship 15(1986), 19–22 South Africa in question, John Lonsdale (Ed.), Cambridge: African Studies Centre, University of Cambridge; London: Currey; Portsmouth, N.H.: Heinemann, 1988 Unhappy Valley : Conflict in Kenya and Africa. Book One: State and class. Book Two: Violence & Ethnicity by Bruce Berman and John Lonsdale, Eastern African Studies. Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Press. London: James Currey, Nairobi: Heinemann, 1992 Politics in Kenya by John Lonsdale and Wanyiri Kihoro, Edinburgh University, Centre of African Studies, 1992 'Listen while I read' : orality, literacy and Christianity in the young Kenyatta's making of the Kikuyu, Edinburgh, 1995 Mau Mau and Nationhood : arms, authority & narration by E.S. Atieno Odhiambo and John Lonsdale, Oxford : Currey; Nairobi : EAEP; Athens : Ohio University Press, 2003 Writing for Kenya. the life and works of Henry Muoria by Wangari Muoria-Sal, Bodil Folke Frederiksen, John Lonsdale, Derek Peterson (Eds.). Series: African Sources for African History, Volume: 10, Leiden & Boston: Brill, 2009 Chapter 1. On Writing Kenya's History, in A Tapestry of African Histories: With Longer Times and Wider Geopolitics by Nicholas K. Githuku (Ed.), Lexington Books, 2021