Robert O. Collins is Emeritus Professor of History at the University of California, Santa Barbara. His recent publications include Civil Wars and Revolution in the Sudan: Essays on the Sudan, Southern Sudan and Darfur, 1962-2004 (2005), Darfur: The Long Road to Disaster (2006) and A History of Sub-Saharan Africa (with James M. Burns, 2007).

• 1. The making of modern Sudan: the nineteenth century; 2. The Anglo-Egyptian condominium; 3. Parliamentary and military experiments in government, 1956-1969; 4. The government of Ja'afar Numayri: the heroic years, 1969-1976; 5. The government of Ja'Afar Numayri: the years of dismay and disintegration, 1976-1985; 6. The TMC and third parliamentary government; 7. The Islamist revolution: the Turabi years, 1989-1996; 8. The Bashir years: beleaguered and defiant; 9. War and peace in the southern Sudan; 10. Disaster in Darfur; Epilogue.

'Robert Collins has drawn deeply on his half century of research on, and intimate knowledge of, Sudan to write a gripping account of what has been for much of this book a tragic history. At a time when Sudan's future is more uncertain than ever- with the peace agreement with the south under strain and new conflict in Darfur - there could be no more revealing account of the making of this situation. Academics, practitioners and the general public will all find enlightenment here.' Peter Woodward, University of Reading