Enrico Ille has written a book of interest to readers with a fascination for Nuba history as well as those with a more contemporary concern for a region that suffered a civil war and today finds itself caught between Sudan and South Sudan. The book discusses the Shaybun mountain region, famous for its gold during the nineteenth century. Today's gold rush in Sudan is foreshadowed in this earlier era. The history of the famous gold mine in Shaybun was documented by German engineers and by Arab and European traders who extracted as much of the profitable product as they could.

The complexity of the contemporary moment emerges in the author's discussions of the Shawabna who populate the region, who were always considered to be neither Nuba nor Arab. For European travelers in the nineteenth century they were anonymous miners and traders in gold and slaves. For the British in the twentieth century, they embodied the fearsome decadence resulting from the mixing of Arab and African populations. And for the contemporary Sudanese, they are a reminder that the question, ‘Arab or African?’, is not applicable to the Shawabna alone, but is of relevance to all Sudanese, the answer to which will decide the future of the two states, many nations, and even more communities.

These two main themes emerge through discussions in which the author takes us into the nineteenth-century travel literature on the area, twentieth-century colonial writings, and texts by long resident missionaries in the area. These sources give us a sense for the various historical views on the region, and a glimpse into the debates about how to classify the different groups. These debates have continued to inform contemporary discussion among international, national, and local scholars, as well as political debates and organizing activities among local populations. Finally, the author offers ethnographic discussions on how the Shawabna people themselves have debated such issues among themselves.

The book is a useful addition to the existing literature on the Nuba Mountains. Scholars will particularly value references to Arabic-language contributions by local scholars. Readers looking for more general perspectives will find useful discussions of the different forms of narrative among the Shawabna of Shaybun.