This is the first full study of the Turkana people of north-western Kenya and their armed resistance of the Turkana people of north-western Kenya to British colonial administration in the early twentieth century. From their first encounters with the colonial vanguard in the 1890s to the final surrender of the Great Diviner, Loolel Kokoi, in 1926, the Turkana resisted imperial conquest. Even after the imposition of colonial rule, they continued to oppose the administration through a variety of strategies.

John Lamphear explores their responses to European colonialism and examines the nature of their resistance, making extensive use of oral sources, as well as archival and published material. His analysis takes full account of the military history of the period, and addresses the fundamental question of why some African societies met the European advance with armed resistance while others did not. In doing so, he makes an important contribution to the historiography of the imperial conquest of Kenya.