Numerous research projects have studied the Nubian cultures of Sudan and Egypt over the last thirty years, leading to significant new insights. The contributions to this handbook illuminate our current understanding of the cultural history of this fascinating region, including its interconnections to the natural world.

A History of the Sudan by Martin Daly and PM Holt, sixth edition, has been fully revised and updated and covers the most recent developments that have occurred in Sudan over the last nine years, including the crisis in Darfur. The most notable developments that this text covers includes the decades-long civil war in the South (with the signing of the Comprehensive Peace Agreement in January 2005); the emergence of the Sudan as an oil-producer and exporter, and its resulting higher profile in global economic affairs, notably as a partner of China; the emergence of al-Qaeda, the relations of Sudanese authorities with Osama bin Laden (whose headquarters were in the Sudan in the 1990s), and the Sudanese government's complicated relations with the West. This text is key introductory reading for any student of North Africa.

This volume provides an updated history of Sudan from the first contacts between the Muslim Arabs and the Christian Nubians to the invasion by the forces of Muhammad 'Ali Pasha. It includes information on the period before Turko-Egyptian invasion especially concerning the coming of Islam.

The spread of modernity throughout the non-Western world has had transformative effects not only on governments and economies but on the lives of individuals as well. The constraints and opportunities of modernization inevitably lead to the breakdown and supplanting of older social relations and livelihoods. In this volume Andrew P. Davidson examines the Nuba Mountain region of western Sudan to show how individuals and families struggle to maintain or expand their well-being in the face of continuous uncertainty, when control of their destinies is increasingly slipping out of the comforting confines of the village.As in many third world regions, changes in agriculture and market activity have occurred in the Nuba mountains in a far more compressed tune frame than in Europe. Davidson charts the social effects of the rationalization process by concentrating on the household as a mediating structure between the individual and the larger society. In his analysis the livelihood strategies of households act as a microcosm for the unevenness of development that is characteristic of modernizing economies. Davidson offers a comparative and historical examination of economic life in three villages in order to better understand the capacities and limitations that ultimately condition what people can and cannot do. He shows how the older lineage system based on communalism, kinship, and age-based hierarchy is being displaced by new forces of social organization and individual orientation which have eroded village cohesion and left the Nuba vulnerable to the Islamic-dominated government in Khartoum and the ravages of the continuing Sudanese civil war.In its combination of empirical analysis, ethnographic fieldwork, and theoretical inquiry In the Shadow of History reconceptualizes development in such a way that the dynamics of historical transformation are made clear. This study hi the classic anthropological tradition will be a valuable resource for anthropologists, economists, historians, and Africa area specialists.

"A welcome addition. They argue that rituals of reproduction in preindustrial societies are essentially political. In these societies, they say, men need to control the reproductive power of women in order to establish political power; where there is no law or central government, ritual is used as a way of gaining control. The type of ritual will vary, they conclude, according to the economic base of the society. . . .for those whoa re interested in the subject, this book is indispensable. Its thesis is challenging and the documentation is excellent. Paige and Paige have mad ean essential contribution to a long debate, and their theory is sure to stir new and lively controversy." --Science Digest This title is part of UC Press's Voices Revived program, which commemorates University of California Press's mission to seek out and cultivate the brightest minds and give them voice, reach, and impact. Drawing on a backlist dating to 1893, Voices Revived makes high-quality, peer-reviewed scholarship accessible once again using print-on-demand technology. This title was originally published in 1981.

Gathered together here are the fruits of 60 years of research by the late Sir Laurence Kirwan into the history and archaeology of the mid 1st millennium AD in the Middle Nile Valley, papers previously scattered through a wide range of publications. Kirwan's fieldwork in the region, undertaken between 1929 and 1936, kindled a life-long interest in the transition from the pagan Kushite kingdom to the medieval Nubian states of Nobadia, Makuria and Alodia (Alwa) and of their conversion to Christianity in the 6th century AD. The 25 studies, one published here for the first time, were often of seminal importance when they first appeared, the author being exemplary in his use of the written sources to elucidate the archaeological data. As the preface by the editors shows, the views expressed remain fundamental to modern scholarship, offering valuable insights into this still relatively obscure period of transition from the ancient to the medieval world.