A recurrent obstacle faced by most historians at some point is the paucity of accessible primary sources. For historians of the Global South, and especially Africa, this is a particularly acute problem. A number of factors, including neglect by state bureaucracies (colonial and postcolonial), the effects of climate and animals (such as ants) on papers, and turmoil through conflict have frequently combined to destroy vast swathes of records. This loss of archival material has been keenly felt among Sudanese studies scholars, notwithstanding the efforts of the National Records Office in Khartoum and the recent attempts to bring together and save the remaining archival records of South Sudan in Juba. In Darfur, there has been a similar story of lost sources, which is why this sourcebook by Sean O'Fahey is highly welcome. As the world's leading authority on the history of Darfur, O'Fahey has left his papers to the universities of Bergen and Durham; they will eventually be made available online (http://www.uib.no/en/rg/smi/90567/r-sean-ofahey-collection).
This sourcebook is a reproduction of documents, and O'Fahey's notes on documents, from the brief period of British rule in Darfur from 1916 to 1956. It therefore makes available materials that are either highly inaccessible to most researchers or, for the most part, materials that have been lost or destroyed.
The first chapter is a report on the Arabs of Darfur, 1915, by H. A. Macmichael, who played a leading role in the British invasion of Darfur in 1916. The report is a fascinating administrative ethnography of the Sultanate. The second chapter is a report on the Fur heartlands from the Zalingei District Notebook, 1935–36. This is a set of “handing over” notes from one official to another, common in many imperial territories. There is much useful information here on topics as varied as markets, customs, agriculture, tribes, justice, communications, and the genealogies of local leaders. The third chapter is on the Nyala Maqdumate, an excerpt from the Nyala District Handbook, c. 1940. This has valuable material on ethnic groups and boundaries that retain their relevance to the situation on the ground in Darfur today. The fourth chapter, notes from various files related to Al Fashir, central and eastern Darfur, lays out the complexity of the interactions between land, land settlement, and ethnicity. The fifth, very interesting, chapter consists of notes on Northern Arabs, the Zaghawa, and other groups. These notes indirectly provide the background to many of the internal and interethnic conflicts that are fundamental to the on-going crisis in Darfur (215). The final chapter, consisting of Western Darfur District handing-over notes 1948–1954, is significant in that the notes' author is a Sudanese civil servant. In this set of notes, certain Northern Sudanese perspectives replaced British ones. This evidence is valuable for its snapshot of a world between imperial and independent rule and its focus on development policy. The book has a very useful glossary and substantive index.
This work has many strengths, not least the level of scholarship on display in the detailed annotations written by O'Fahey. These help clarify terms, provide further references for those who wish to delve further, and offer uniformly insightful commentaries. The preface or introduction to each document is equally valuable, explaining the provenance and, crucially, the context of each source. What comes out very clearly here is that despite the brief and in many ways fleeting presence of the British in Darfur, their impact was in fact long-lasting. This is most clearly shown by how, instead of sweeping away Sultan Ali Dinar's supposedly barbarous administration (which the British did not have the capacity to do), British officials in fact consolidated it, thus inadvertently demonstrating how effective Ali Dinar had been in reorganizing the Sultanate during his short reign. In this way, O'Fahey's sourcebook also serves as a compelling interpretation of British rule in Darfur.
Although a sourcebook on Darfur during British rule may seem appealing to only a narrow readership, all Sudanic and Sahelian studies scholars will find this essential reading. Delving into the book will also reward scholars of imperial history, especially its administrative element. Those with an interest in peasant, nomadic, and medical histories can also find material here. More widely, historians of development and current international development practitioners would profit from consulting this book.
Why publish such a book when the material could be placed online and be freely accessible? Here we return to the vagaries of primary sources, their preservation and their access. I do think this material would benefit from being made available online. But not everyone has internet access—Google's Project Loon balloons, Facebook's solar-powered planes, and Elon Musk's satellite system, all designed to blanket the globe in internet coverage, are still in development. Even with such systems up and running, the cost of internet-enabled devices is still prohibitive for many. Consequently, a book like this has a value to scholarship and knowledge far beyond its cover price, if it finds a home in university libraries across the world, but especially university libraries in the Global South.
