The Crisis in Darfur

by Jeff T. Hay

This series provides multiple views of momentous events in recent history; each book helps readers develop critical thinking skills, increase global awareness, and enhance their understanding of international perspectives about historic events.; ; Using primary and secondary sources, each volume provides background information on a significant event in modern world history, presents the controversies surrounding the event, and offers first-person narratives from people who lived through or were impacted by the event. All volumes in the series include an annotated table of contents, a world map, a chronology, a glossary of key terms, a bibliography, and a subject index.

224 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 20, 2011

Reviews

[sheila · Rating 5 out of 5]

With an introduction written in 2010 this book is outdated by no fault of its own. It goes on to share excerpts from news articles, opinion pieces, political speeches, and memoirs published between 2005 and 2009 surrounding the crisis in Darfur (Sudan). When an excerpt is obviously biased the book intentionally follows it up with an excerpt of the opposing bias. Of course, more objective excerpts are also included as the book never treaded into American exceptionalism or Islamophobia in my opinion.

I initially intended to solidly rate this 4 stars over the lack of maps. The world map included in the introduction (one of two maps in this book) zooms into West Africa, not even including Sudan in the frame. Again, the map shows the book's age by not depicting South Sudan. I mean, Obama is beginning his first term and Xi Jinping is not even the president of China yet in this book!

That said, this book is clearly written in the style of a high-school level textbook. Including a broad timeline, index, and constant reminders of acronyms all made this book very accessible. But, more importantly, this book provides a physical snapshot in time of media coverage surrounding Sudan. When I went to find many of these articles and speeches online/digitally they had long been removed. The only signs they ever existed were found in the bibliographies of other academic texts as references. The reminder of the importance of physically maintaining documentation of history and its atrocities bumps my rating up to 5 stars. What's been included in this book can't be altered and certainly can't be unpublished by any current powers that be.

The final section of this book includes excerpts from interviews with the authors of different memoirs as well as excerpts from the memoirs themselves that absolutely made my heart squeeze. I include them here for myself and for others to discover:

Out of Exile: Narratives from the Abducted and Displaced People of Sudan
Darfur Diaries: Stories of Survival
Tears of the desert: A Memoir of Survival in Darfur by Halima Bashir
The Devil Came on Horseback by Brian Steidle

[Cardyn Brooks · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book gives very detailed information about the history of conflict in Northwestern Africa, starting from 1821 and moving forward through individuals, religious doctrines, political intrigues, military overreach, racial strife, tribal in-fighting, natural diasters, etc.

If I had to choose only one book to read in order to get a succinct, overall idea of what's been happening in the Sudan region of Africa for the past 100 years, this is the one I'd read.