This pioneering volume introduces and defines a new realm of scholarly investigation. Over the course of half-century of independence the former Anglo-Egyptian Sudan has been torn by extended periods of warfare, during which the Southern Sudan, roughly defined by the basin of the White Nile, has acquired an ever-greater sense of separate identity. During the same interval the Southern Sudan has been drawn increasingly into a web of diplomatic and geopolitical ties with neighboring lands, with regional powers such as Egypt, Israel and the oil states, and occasionally with major international powers and interests.