Southern Sudan will probably celebrate 2011 as its year of political independence. Thus, it is altogether fitting that this new study on the creation of the Equatoria province of the Turko-Egyptian Sudan reminds readers that the primary agents in creating a Sudanese state that reached all the way to Lake Victoria were an Egyptian Khedive, Ismail (r. 1863–79), and two British adventurers, Samuel Baker and Charles Gordon. Drawing on copious primary sources, notably the Baker and Gordon papers, located in libraries in London, and the archives of the Egyptian government in Cairo, Alice Moore-Harell unravels the complicated diplomatic and technological history involved in the exploration of this territory and its eventual administrative annexation to Egypt.

In the author's account, the motive forces behind Egypt's expansion into central Africa were these two British figures, distinctly different yet both eager to serve an Egyptian government in efforts to stamp out the slave trade, to further explorations of Africa (particularly in a search for the sources of the Nile in and perhaps beyond Lake Victoria), and to advance the causes of ‘civilization’ in a seemingly desolate region through the establishment of settled Egyptian administration. Neither Baker nor Gordon was elevated to a position of authority following an intensive search. In truth, they were chance appointments. Baker just happened to be in Cairo when the Khedive was looking for someone to lead an expedition into this area. The Khedive granted him two two-year contracts, which he did not renew. Instead, he turned the task over to Gordon, who had lately and somewhat inadvertently come to his attention.

Both men had qualities that commended them for this work, and some that did not. Baker was a fiery and driven individual, who, like a good number of the adventurers/explorers/expansionists drawn to Africa in the age just preceding the partition of Africa, did not hesitate to use overwhelming – even, one might say, unnecessary – force to further his cause. His efforts aroused much African antagonism and were a factor in Khedive Ismail's decision to find a replacement. Gordon, a born leader of men and a man with an international reputation for executing difficult and complicated tasks under demanding circumstances, burnished by his efforts to quell the Taiping rebellion in China, provoked much less resistance from the African populations whom he endeavored to bring under Egyptian rule and accomplished more than his predecessor. He raised the Egyptian flag over more of these distant lands and brought a greater level of settled administration to central Africa than Baker, though he and the Egyptian officials whom he served never disputed the debt that he owed to his predecessor.

The strength of this study rests in its exhaustive use of archival sources and its meticulous telling of a complicated story. Readers relive the infrequent yet heroic triumphs of this hardy band of explorer-conquerors. Far more regularly, they share the frustrations and despair of expeditionary forces operating at close to 1,000 miles from their administrative center (Cairo), which was not always responsive to requests coming from the group, and functioning in a land with an enervating climate that took the lives of many and left those who could endure the heat and the diseases with limited energies. Yes, the Baker and Gordon teams did put a steamer on Lake Albert; they did establish stations along the Nile from Gondokoro to Lake Victoria; and they did reduce slave raiding and trading in the region. But the Turko-Egyptian administration was very light indeed, and was rarely able to collect taxes from the local populations.

Africanists may be somewhat disappointed with this book. Moore-Harell is at her best describing the climate and geography of Equatoria; and she explores the complex personalities of the two leading British agents, making ample use of their papers. But Africans are less well served, despite the fact that there are some deserving figures whom the author might have employed to give the narrative a firmer African setting. The Bari people provided the most resistance to Baker, but we learn little about their polity and society. On the other hand, the Nyoro seemed to welcome the Turko-Egyptian intervention. Was this because they were more adept at manipulating these outsiders? We do not learn. King Mutesa, one of Africa's most notable pre-partition figures, appears on the scene but never gets much attention. Alas, Moore-Harell's tendency to refer to the many African peoples with whom Baker and Gordon were involved by using the racist terminology that was prevalent at the time (‘natives’), instead of calling them Africans or peoples or Bari, Shilluk, Nuer, Dinka, and the like, makes it all the more apparent that her interest lies with the British explorers, for whom most Africans were little more than uncivilized impediments.