This volume provides an updated history of Sudan from the first contacts between the Muslim Arabs and the Christian Nubians to the invasion by the forces of Muhammad 'Ali Pasha. It includes information on the period before Turko-Egyptian invasion especially concerning the coming of Islam.

The second edition of A History of Sub-Saharan Africa continues to provide an accessible introduction to the continent's history for students and general readers. The authors employ a thematic approach to their subject, focusing on how the environment has shaped the societies and cultures of the African peoples. The text demonstrates how the geography, climate, and geology of Africa influenced the rise of states and empires, the emergence of the trans-Atlantic slave trade, the European conquest, and the creation of independent African nations. Yet the book maintains a focus on the peoples whose creative energies built unique communities and traditions within the challenging context of the Africa landmass. In the process of reconstructing this continent's rich history, the authors analyze the contentious scholarly debates that have emerged out of this field. The book is illustrated with photographs, maps, and sidebars that feature the salient points on either side of the debates.

South Sudan is the world's youngest independent country. This book provides a general history of the new country.

Africa’s newest nation has a long history. Often considered remote and isolated from the rest of Africa, and usually associated with the violence of slavery and civil war, South Sudan has been an arena for a complex mixing of peoples, languages, and beliefs. The nation’s diversity is both its strength and a challenge as its people attempt to overcome the legacy of decades of war to build a new economic, political, and national future. Most recent studies of South Sudan’s history have a foreshortened sense of the past, focusing on current political issues, the recently ended civil war, or the ongoing conflicts within the country and along its border with Sudan. This brief but substantial overview of South Sudan’s longue durée, by one of the world’s foremost experts on the region, answers the need for a current, accessible book on this important country. Drawing on recent advances in the archaeology of the Nile Valley, new fieldwork as well as classic ethnography, and local and foreign archives, Johnson recovers South Sudan’s place in African history and challenges the stereotypes imposed on its peoples.

This textbook in history is primarily intended for secondary schools in South Sudan. The focus is on the history of South Sudan, and is in this sense a pioneer work since it is the country's first secondary school book dealing primarily with the history of the South. Even though the focus is on South Sudan its history cannot be interpreted in a vacuum, and particularly North-South relations are discussed extensively in the book. Secondary school students in Sudan have either studied the history of Kenya and Uganda, or the history of North Sudan since no history book for South Sudan has existed. The book may also be of interest to academics, politicians, historians and college and university students as well civil society groups such as churches, youth and women's groups.

Introduction to the Second Edition and Chapter Eight copyright A2016 Richard Cockett.