Class and Power in Sudan

Book excerpt: With the attention of the industrialized world focused on the political, economic, and social strife of Africa, Tim Niblock travels to Sudan for a first-hand investigation of the socio-economic structure of that continent’s largest country. His findings hold significant implications for the wider context of Africa, the Arab countries, and the Third World. His is a systematic and comprehensive study of Sudanese politics. A country with immense economic potential, possessing extensive tracts of cultivable but currently uncultivated land, Sudan could emerge as a major source of food for the Arab world. Yet it is threatened by famine while attempts at development are frustrated by civil war and political disarray. Niblock examines the political, economic, and social factors that have shaped the country’s development. The fate of Sudan will be critical to the political stability of North-East Africa and the Red Sea area, and the Sudanese experience is instructive for underdeveloped countries as a whole.