Lost Nationalism - (Eastern Africa) by Elena Vezzadini (Paperback)

About the Book

Winner of the African Studies Association 2016 Bethwell A. Ogot Book Prize

A lively account of the 1924 Revolution in Sudan and the way in which the colonial situation has affected its representation, a case in point inthe histories of nationalist anti-colonial movements in Africa and the Middle East.

Book Synopsis

Winner of the African Studies Association 2016 Bethwell A. Ogot Book Prize

A lively account of the 1924 Revolution in Sudan and the way in which the colonial situation has affected its representation, a case in point inthe histories of nationalist anti-colonial movements in Africa and the Middle East.

Winner of the African Studies Association 2016 Bethwell A. Ogot Book Prize

The 1924 Revolution was a watershed in Sudanese history, the first episode of anti-colonial resistance in which a nationalist ideology was explicitly used, and part of a global wave of anti-colonial movements after the First World War that can be seen as the "spring of the colonial nations".

This detailed account of the uprising, and its eventual failure, explores the cosmopolitan nationalism embraced by the White Flag League, the movement that sparked the revolution, and its ability to attract people from diverse origins, classes and professions. It examines the international genesisof the movement; the strategies put in place to spread it in different areas of Sudan and among different groups; the movement's inclusive ideology and its definition of the Sudanese nation, as well as the limitations to its inclusiveness; and the way in which this episode reveals deeper questions relating to origins, social hierarchies and power. The book also unravels the complex history of the memory of 1924, the politics of its representation and the underlying power struggles that saw 1924 largely lost from the historical record.

Elena Vezzadini is a historian of modern Sudan affiliated to the CNRS, Institut des Mondes Africains, Paris.

Review Quotes

[A]s a well-documented case study utilizing major conceptual frameworks for analysis, Lost Nationalism is a useful contribution to understanding nationalism and revolution in the modern world. CANADIAN JOURNAL OF AFRICAN STUDIES The Arabic and English, textual and visual, primary and secondary sources on which Vezzadini was able to draw for this study, while extraordinarily rich and abundant, were also challenging and complex. Her painstaking analysis of them in their Sudanese contexts as well as from the vantage point of a wide range of relevant comparative and theoretical scholarship is nothing less than impressive.-- "INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF AFRICAN HISTORICAL STUDIES"