Darfur's Sorrow

"Darfur's Sorrow is the first general history of Darfur to be published in any language. The book surveys events from before the founding of the Fur sultanate in the sixteenth century through the rise and establishment of the Fur state and its incorporation into the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan in 1916. The narrative continues with detailed coverage of the brief but all-important colonial period (1916-1956) and Darfur's history as a neglected peripheral region since independence. The political, economic, environmental, and social factors that gave rise to the current humanitarian crisis are discussed in detail, as is the course of Darfur's rebellion, its brutal suppression by the Sudanese government, and the lawless brigands known as janjawid. The second edition of the book brings the story up to date and includes an analysis of attempts to save Darfur's embattled people and to bring an end to the fighting"--Provided by publisher. "Until the depredations of the fearsome rabble known as janjawid began to filter into the international consciousness in 2003, Darfur was one of the least-known places in the world. Poor, remote, landlocked, and sparsely populated, it was obscure even to the rest of the Sudan. Darfur's western borders are as far from the Red Sea as they are from the Atlantic, and the overland journey from Khartoum, the Sudanese capital on the Nile, still takes days across the desert. Darfur has no valuable minerals (although oil drillers live in hope), no famous sons or daughters, no natural wonders or monuments to attract any but the hardiest foreign visitors. When word of the killings began to seep out in 2003, it seemed to a perplexed world to be news from a void"--Provided by publisher.