Foreign Policy > Africa

A Book that Gets Race Relations Right

And it will never be taught in any of the public schools.

Jeffrey Folks | April 29, 2026

Recently, I re-read The Flame Trees of Thika (1959), a book by Elspeth Huxley that I had read some forty years ago.  It is not a book that would be taught in universities or schools today, unless it were as an example of the evils of British colonialism.  This is a shame, because Huxley’s memoir is a beautifully written account of her childhood in Kenya in the early 20th century and her love of the land and people.  More so than any other book that I know, it is filled with warmth, kindness, and real knowledge of both the British settlers and the native Kikuyu of the region where she lived until she was nineteen.

The Flame Trees of Thika exhibits no embarrassment about what is called British colonialism.  Elspeth Huxley was a precocious child who made friendships with everyone, from the local chief to the farm overseer and cook to the many adults in the Huxley family circle.  She valued each person she met on the basis of his worth and character.  There were blacks like the farm overseer Njombo, “whose smiling face was packed with guile and an accomplished liar,” and others like Andrew, the family cook who treasured his connection with the family so much that he became angry when Elspeth’s mother told him he could not accompany her back to England.  There were Robin and Tilly, Elspeth’s parents, a  combination of an incompetent but affectionate daydreamer and a long-suffering, sensitive wife.  And there was Elspeth herself — intelligent; open-minded; and loving of plants, animals, and people.

It is not just its attitude toward colonialism that sets Huxley’s book apart.  Huxley’s writing cuts to the heart of what is being taught in schools and colleges today.  It is filled with intricate knowledge of East Africa — the plants and animals and their habitats, the behavior (good and bad) of native tribes and Europeans, the cycle of life and death, and so much more.  There is also an impartial view of British governance and law, an aspect of the book that in itself would get it blacklisted it from most syllabi.  Every university has courses on “postcolonial literature” or colonial history, but none of these is willing to admit what Huxley takes for granted: that European settlers were simply trying to make a better life for themselves, and that in doing so, they brought a higher civilization to a continent that had been consumed for centuries by tribal warfare, scarcity, and lack of educational opportunities.

Opposed to Huxley’s knowledgeable view is what is taught in our schools: a thin, largely ignorant approach to the subject matter masked by ideological correctness.  I have read literary criticism — much of it, actually — that fails to reference a single book of literature.  Certainly the teaching of the history and culture of Africa is awash with condemnation of the colonial ways of Europeans and an idealized portrait of natives lives that were actually far from ideal.  The university approach is so simplistic that it can be summarized in a few words: “Westerners bad, natives good, if not perfect.”  That sort of teaching is utterly lacking in the kind of real knowledge that one finds in The Flame Trees of Thika.

For Huxley, it goes without saying that her civilization is superior to that of native Africans, but this does not preclude her treating the Kikuyu and Masai around her with humanity and acceptance.  The Kikuyu who work on her parents’ coffee plantation and in her home are treated with dignity and kindness.  Elspeth understands that there are blacks who are not to be trusted, just as there are whites who cannot be, but she is often under the care of blacks whom her parents trust implicitly.

The Flame Trees of Thika is also a beautifully written book, modest and unassuming — as a book from the perspective of a young girl of her time should be — and utterly lacking in racial politics or what is now called “woke” ideology.  Elspeth Huxley grew up in a British colony where blacks had been relegated to reservations but where the fortunate worked as cooks, guides, and housekeepers for Europeans.  Those jobs relieved them of the grinding poverty of  their reservations, and for some, they served as stepping stones to greater things.  They learned the language, customs, and culture of those who brought Western civilization to Africa.

There is an enormous difference between  The Flame Trees of Thika and the books that are taught in colonial or postcolonial courses in our educational system.  What is lost is simply that Huxley’s account is utterly true, whereas nearly all of the titles in schools and colleges are driven by a Marxist ideology that is antithetical to Western civilization.  Colonial experience is used, in effect, as an example of Marxist teachings: Those who grasped African colonies by force and took over the land did so with the “evil” intent of investing capital and producing a profit, even if many, like Elspeth’s parents, failed to produce much of anything.

The implications of not teaching books like The Flame Trees of Thika actually go much farther than that.  What is being taught in our schools is dishonesty toward our own past, and the repercussions are great.  When Europeans came to Africa, they did not do so with the intention of enslaving or repressing the native population.  Native blacks interacted with white settlers in the way that all human beings interact: by trading, learning, engaging in work, and appreciating another’s culture.  It is the humanity of our past — and the goodness — that today’s educators refuse to acknowledge.

This dishonesty undermines our attitude toward our ancestors and toward the civilization we have inherited.  Students graduate with a confused and skeptical attitude toward what should be most certain and important: the fact that their forebears struggled to achieve a better life for themselves and their descendants, just as we should be working to provide a better life for ours.  But teaching the past in such a dishonest manner is not going to make life better for anyone.

Jeffrey Folks is the author of many books and articles on American culture, most recently Heartland of the Imagination (2011).

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