Saviors and Survivors, Mahmood Mamdani, 398pp, Verso

The debate surrounding Darfur is always contentious and often lacking in historical depth. This book provides a weighty antidote, though it brings a little poison of its own. The Abbala Arabs, battered by colonial-era agreements which left the Fur in charge in Darfur and four decades of drought that have changed the sustainability of grazing land in the north of the province, have been pushed into conflict with the Fur. The feared Janjaweed militia are drawn from the Abbala. Mamdani argues that the Darfur conflict requires a political settlement, and that the loud anti-genocide lobby in the US is preventing this from taking place, since it demands a knee-jerk interventionist response. What is needed is to open a middle ground for policy-makers that allows for deliberation and action; the two need not be mutually exclusive.