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Binding: Hardcover
Dewey Decimal Number: 962.4043
EAN: 9780801444500
ISBN: 0801444500
Label: Cornell University Press
Manufacturer: Cornell University Press
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 232
Publication Date: August 26, 2005
Publisher: Cornell University Press
Studio: Cornell University Press

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Editorial Review:

Product Description:
In mid-2004 the Darfur crisis in Western Sudan forced itself onto the center stage of world affairs. Arab Janjaweed militias, who support the Khartoum government, have engaged in a campaign of violence against the residents of Western Sudan. A formerly obscure ‘tribal conflict’ in the heart of Africa has escalated into the first genocide of the twenty-first century. In sharp contrast to official reaction to the Rwandan massacres, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell called the situation in Darfur a "genocide" in September 2004. Its characteristics–Arabism, Islamism, famine as a weapon of war, mass rape, international obfuscation, and a refusal to look evil squarely in the face–reflect many of the problems of the global South in general and of Africa in particular.

Journalistic explanations of the unfolding humanitarian catastrophe have been given to hurried generalizations and inaccuracies: the genocide has been portrayed as an ethnic clash marked by Arab-on-African violence, with the Janjaweed militias under strict government control, but neither of these impressions is strictly true. Darfur: The Ambiguous Genocide explains what lies behind the conflict, how it came about, why it should not be oversimplified, and why it is so relevant to the future of the continent.

Gérard Prunier sets out the ethnopolitical makeup of the Sudan and explains why the Darfur rebellion is regarded as a key threat to Arab power in the country—much more so than secessionism in the Christian South. This, he argues, accounts for the government’s deployment of "exemplary violence" by the Janjaweed militias in order to intimidate other African Muslims into subservience. As the world watches; governments decide if, when, and how to intervene; and international organizations struggle to distribute aid, the knowledge in Prunier’s book will provide crucial assistance.




Rating: - Description of the genocide with historical background
Gerard Prunier begins his book with historical background. He starts in fifteenth-century, but moving quickly he reaches the twentieth century by page twenty. He describes Darfur as neglected first by the British colonial administration and then by the Sudanese government after independence. Darfur was peripherally, he writes, valued only a base for Sudan, Chad, and Libya to launch attacks at each other. Libya's mid-1980s incursion brought weapons, racial incitement, and further instability to ... Read More

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Rating: - Essential source on the Darfur conflict
This book is one of the essential sources on the Darfur conflict. Prunier writes in detail about the period when Darfur was an independent sultanate and discusses complex ethnic distinctions in the region - from the "African" and "Arab" tribes to ethnic and tribal differences among both groups.

The author notes that people with different ethnic and tribal backgrounds lived in Darfur in relative peace for centuries but have been exploited and politicized by the governments of Sudan, Chad, ... Read More

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Rating: - Understanding Darfur ?
Very precise, very clear book. And necessary for anyone who wants to try to understand something about Darfur - yesterday, today, and, perhaps, tomorrow.

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Rating: - Clarity Triumphs Over Cliche
If you will read just one book about Darfur, I can't imagine a better choice. Nothing else I've read so deftly sorts through Darfur's complex history, making clear how geographic, economic, social and political strands of the region's past made it vulnerable to the crimes perpetrated there. Prunier takes a seemingly incomprehensible story and makes it almost perfectly comprehensible. Prunier shatters all the myths and cliches that pervade media accounts of the conflict and so vex critical thinkers, ... Read More

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Rating: - Poor Editing Harms Presentation
I'm not an expert on Darfur nor do I spend much time reading about African politics. I came to this book in the hopes of understanding the Darfur crisis better. Parts of this book are excellent, but the poor editing and confused chronology for the updated section at the end nearly make the book useless for the uninformed reader. The first section on historical background is fascinating and for the most part clearly written, although it would have been useful to offer a clearer chronology of events in Chad, ... Read More

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