In 1938, while living in London, Jomo Kenyatta published "Facing Mount Kenya," an anthropological study of Kikuyu society. It was presented as scholarship, but it was also a manifesto. Kenyatta described Kikuyu land tenure, governance, and ritual in meticulous detail to prove that Africans had functioning societies before colonialism. The book defended practices like female circumcision that missionaries condemned. It argued that British rule was illegitimate because it destroyed systems that worked. "Facing Mount Kenya" made Kenyatta an intellectual authority. When he returned to Kenya in 1946, he was already the leader independence needed.