This book is open access and available on www.bloomsburycollections.com.
It is funded by Knowledge Unlatched. In the wake of the protests
that toppled regimes across the Middle East in 2011, Sudanese activists
and writers have proudly cited their very own ‘Arab Springs’ of 1964 and
1985, which overthrew the country’s first two military regimes, as
evidence of their role as political pioneers in the region. Whilst some
of these claims may be exaggerated, Sudan was indeed unique in the
region at the time in that it witnessed not one but two popular
uprisings which successfully uprooted military authoritarianisms.
Civil Uprisings in Modern Sudan provides the first scholarly
book-length history of the 1964 and 1985 uprisings. It explores the
uprisings themselves, their legacy and the contemporary relevance they
hold in the context of the current political climate of the Middle East.
The book also contends that the sort of politics espoused by various
kinds of Islamist during the uprisings can be interpreted as a form of
early ‘post-Islamism’, in which Islamist political agendas were seen to
be compatible with liberalism and democracy. Using interviews,
Arabic language sources and a wealth of archival material, this book is
an important and original study that is of great significance for
scholars of African and Middle Eastern political history.