In 1989, a secretive movement of Islamists allied itself to a military cabal to violently take power in Africa's biggest country. Sudan's revolutionary regime was built on four pillars - a new politics, economic liberalisation, an Islamic revival, and a U-turn in foreign relations - and mixed militant conservatism with social engineering: a vision of authoritarian modernisation. Water and agricultural policy have been central to this state-building project. Going beyond the conventional lenses of famine, 'water wars' or the oil resource curse, Harry Verhoeven links environmental factors,...

Water, Civilisation and Power in Sudan offers an alternative account of how water policy, violence, and economic modernisation are linked.

A critical examination of liberation/pan-Africanist ideologies and the ambitions of many of the key players in Zaire/DRC's long-running civil war that helps explain why neighbouring countries intervened in the conflict