South Sudan

Douglas H. Johnson is a Fellow of the Rift Valley Institute, a historian of Sudan and South Sudan, and an award-winning author and editor. He was a consultant during the Sudan peace talks and a member of the Abyei Boundaries Commission.

"There are precious few history books about South Sudan that look beyond its recent origins. South Sudan: A New History for a New Nation is an excellent example of just such a work. Douglas H. Johnson is one of the world's most eminently qualified authors for such an undertaking. An excellent, compact history." (Africa at LSE Book Reviews) "With its call for better use of existing sources and a stronger historiographical approach, South Sudan: A New History for a New Nation is a timely addition which speaks directly to South Sudan's mixed experience of nation building and which challenges existing misconceptions about South Sudan and its history.…Johnson picks apart the singular paradigm of South Sudan's perennial exploitation by various intruders, offering instead a rich exposition of a diverse region." (Sudan Studies) "Douglas Johnson's South Sudan is a bold project by an author deeply knowledgeable about how local histories have now merged into a new and troubled state. The book offers impressive details for how disparate ethnicities have come to take on the obstacles to building a nation, or the failure to do so. Johnson has been a consummate observer of this place and this struggle that has a history and faces extraordinary challenges to make a national future." "South Sudan: A New History for a New Nation is the best current political history of the world's youngest nation by its most prominent living historian." "Johnson's unrivaled knowledge of South Sudan's history is apparent throughout this concise and readable book. His approach is both sympathetic and critical: South Sudan's current woes are explicable, but not inevitable. It would be easy to see South Sudan's history simply as a bleak story of oppression and misrule; but Johnson shows us that it is also a story of innovation and courage. South Sudan has a deeply problematic historical legacy, and the current situation is dire: yet as this timely book shows, it is not hopeless." "Douglas Johnson has managed to pack a vivid, longue durée history of Africa's newest nation into a highly readable book. For anyone gripped by the tumultuous current events of South Sudan, and those speculating about its future, this book is essential reading." (Focus on the Horn) "It is a challenging intellectual responsibility to write a 'new history for a new nation,' but it is difficult to imagine anyone better qualified to do it than Douglas Johnson. In this brief book Johnson not only covers the entire sweep of the history of southern Sudan from the ancient period to the present day but evokes with precision and nuance crucial developments in the history of region and nation and its peoples."