Civil Uprisings in Modern Sudan: The 'Khartoum Springs' of 1964 and 1985 (A Modern History of Politics and Violence) by W.J. Berridge - 2015

Bloomsbury, 2015. Hardbound. New Book. Hardbound. Sudanese writers and activists have recently used the idea of the Arab Spring movement to describe their own civil uprisings in 1964 and 1985. This book offers the first full-length scholarly history of these uprisings. The book is extensively detailed. The author has relied on interviews, sources in Arabic, and extensive archival material. The author notes that these events are crucial to understanding Sudanese history and politics before the 1989 military coup. The book seeks to reclaim the term intifada from post-1989 Islamists and militarists, arguing most Sudanese people associate it with this era and ideals of a popular democratic Islamic movement. While the liberal democratic eras that followed both uprisings were short-lived, the author argues that they are significant for the region: in both cases, largely peaceful democratic civil action overthrew entrenched military regimes at a time when only military action was usually successful at replacing authoritarian governments in Africa and the Middle East. The book will be of interest to scholars and policy experts studying democracy, popular movements, and Islam; Sudan is often left out of discussions of African civil politics since it is an Islamic country, and discussions of Islamic/Arabic-speaking nations because it is African, so the book fills an information gap. (2015 Ringgold, Inc., Portland, OR)