A history of Southern Sudan, from pre-colonial times to the present. Many societies worldwide possess oral histories and long memories, reaching back many centuries, particularly of wars and events of great trauma. Labeling them "blood memories" in this book, Stephanie Beswick presents a pre-colonial history of Southern Sudan, a region that, according to some, "has no history." Beginning in the fourteenth century, the book follows the region's largest ethnic group today, the Dinka, from their original homelands in the central Sudanese Gezira between the Blue and White Niles, into their more recently adopted homelands in Southern Sudan. Beswick demonstrates how early pre-colonial stresses play a critical role in modern-day South Sudan, in what has since become the world's longest civil war, fought externally against the fundamentalist Islamic Northern Sudanese government as well as internally within the South itself. Stephanie Beswick is professor of history at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana. She was born in Khartoum, Sudan.

Originating from the 2008 27th annual conference of the Sudan Studies Association (SSA) of the same title, these essays document and analyze Sudan's chronic history of conflict since independence in 1956 as well as its own and international efforts to bring an end to these conflicts. As the country moves toward what some see as the inevitable separation of South Sudan in 2011 honoring the principle of self-determination long fought for by southerners, the lessons of six decades of a history of war and peace agreements is both telling and compelling. This analysis is offered by the real experts on Sudan rather than the usual story offered by journalists and pundits. In addition to an Introduction by the editors, all founders or current or past presidents of the SSA, the essays by Sudanese and non-Sudanese explore the often bitter history of North-South relations and loss of life leading to the consideration of a range of options from a continuation of national unity under revised terms, to federation or redivision, to full separation of the South and the constitution of a new African state. The role of the Khartoum government's pursuit of policies of Islamization and Islamism for a quarter of a century across multiple regimes is also treated. The central question of constructing a sustainable peace, irrespective of the outcome in 2011, is detailed along with the essential consideration of women and gender perspectives to sustain any peace negotiated. This book is must reading in advance of, or in response to, the crucial events as they unfold in Sudan in 2011 and beyond.