"This book falls into four parts. Part one provides a background to Sudan's multiple crises and traces their genesis to the evolution of modern Sudan as we have known it since the Turkish colonial rule and the Mahdiyya. It also identifies the disruptions caused by the two regimes to the historical processes of unity and indigenous nation building dating back to the Funj Kingdom. That happened in a way that had sown the seeds of ongoing conflict ... Part two deals with the most crucial period in the history of war and peace in Sudan: the period immediately prior to and following independence. It was the period of betrayal of the Sudanese expectations from independence; charitably one may call it the era of the tragedy of good intentions ... Part three tracks back the emergence of contemporary political Islam since the mid-1960s and the political rumpus that ensued from it, leading to the seizure of power by the NIF. The radical religionization of politics in the decade of the 1990s is not an isolated episode, its roots go back to the mid-1960s when Sudan's Islamists emerged as a viable political force. Finally, part four of the book dissertates on three related issues. The first is national identity which became central to, and a blistering issue in, the debate. The second relates tot he escalation of war to unprecedented dimensions including the humanitarian catastrophes that stemmed from the intensification of violence and the international concern this has generated. That heightened international concern resulted in numerous diplomatic interventions and mediation efforts. This part concludes with a chapter on the overdue realization by the Sudanese themselves of the inappositeness of the old political paradigm that typified Old Sudan. All Sudanese agree today that Sudan is better united. However, unlike in the 1960s and 1970s, there is almost a consensus that unity can neither be achieved against people's will nor when the society is permanently stratified along rigid cultural, religious and ethnic lines ... Sudan today is at a crossroads and one hopes that the new self-persuasion reflected in the Asmara Resolutions is a beginning of a new vision that would foster a change of direction from the perilous way to which Sudan was driven by visionless powerseekers. Sudan's elite, both in the North and South, will have to face with courage and magnanimity not only the portent of their undertakings in Asmara but also the realities of the country's present situation"--Introduction.