This book describes the Madhist invasions of the Southern Sudan, their success, and finally their defeat by the forces of the Congo Free State.

Robert O. Collins is one of the most prolific authors on Africa, the Sudan, and the Nile. The Southern Sudan in Historical Perspective, based on a series of lectures he gave at Tel Aviv University, is a succinct and engaging study of the Southern Sudan, from its origins in antiquity, the British occupation of the early twentieth century, the civil disturbances of 1955, its independence in 1956, to the violence of the late 1960s and early 1970s.

South Sudan is the world's youngest independent country. Established in 2011 after two wars, South Sudan has since reverted to a state of devastating civil strife. This book provides a general history of the new country, from the arrival of Turco-Egyptian explorers in Upper Nile, the turbulence of the Mahdist revolutionary period, the chaos of the 'Scramble for Africa', during which the South was prey to European and African adventurers and empire builders, to the Anglo-Egyptian colonial era. Special attention is paid to the period since Sudanese independence in 1956, when Southern disaffection grew into outright war, from the 1960s to 1972, and from 1983 until the Comprehensive Peace of 2005, and to the transition to South Sudan's independence. The book concludes with coverage of events since then, which since December 2013 have assumed the character of civil war, and with insights into what the future might hold.

This is a collection of twenty essays written over forty years between 1962 and 2004 on the Sudan, southern Sudan and Darfur. Four decades of civil war has cost more than two million dead and another six million refugees and Internally Displaced Persons. Now, after a decade of ambivalent and frustrating negotiations, a peace agreement between the Sudan People's Liberation Movement and the Government of the Sudan has finally been signed on 9 January 2005 leaving in its wake a devastated southern Sudan - its infrastructure completely destroyed, its fragile economy in ruins, and its people exhausted after nearly half a century of fierce fighting. Although these twenty essays include such topics as nation-building, the dynamics of racial, ethnic, cultural, and religious identity, the politics of oil, and the legacy of slavery, most of them are concerned with conflict in the Sudan, its participants, and the reasons why and it began and has continued for so long. These essays are presented here in chronological order, the aggregate becomes a unique history of the Sudan's terrible civil war that cannot be found elsewhere. the independent Sudan are woven into the text of each revealing new insights into the history of these tumultuous decades.

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.

Sudan's post-independence history has been dominated by political and civil strife. Most commentators have attributed the country's recurring civil war either to an age-old racial divide between Arabs and Africans, or to recent colonially constructed inequalities. This book attempts a more complex analysis, briefly examining the historical, political, economic and social factors which have contributed to periodic outbreaks of violence between the state and its peripheries. In tracing historical continuities, it outlines the essential differences between the modern Sudan's first civil war in the 1960s and the current war. It also looks at the series of minor civil wars generated by, and contained within, the major conflict, as well as the regional and international factors - including humanitarian aid - which have exacerbated civil violence. This introduction is aimed at students of North-East Africa, and of conflict and ethnicity. It should be useful for people in aid and international organizations who need a straightforward analytical survey which will help them assess the prospects for a lasting peace in Sudan. Douglas H. Johnson is an independent scholar and former international expert on the Abyei Boundaries Commission.