Recent journalistic accounts of conflicts in the new state of South Sudan have tended to interpret them as between the age-old antagonistic “tribes” of the Dinka and the Nuer. An earlier and influential generation of anthropologists and Africanists (notably E. E. Evans-Pritchard and Godfrey Lienhardt) described the southern Sudanese region as one of leaderless “stateless societies.” More recent historians’ accounts have seen tribes and chiefs as “inventions” of colonial rule, with imagined myths of identity and creation. Many have argued that local chiefs have existed at least since the colonial era—but were they in reality the representatives of local groups or of the central government? Accounts of the southern Sudanese independence movements have described the changing relationships between the Sudan Peoples’ Liberation Movement/Army (SPLM/A) and those who were seen, or saw themselves, as local chiefs. The complex and contradictory nature of political power in southern Sudan exemplifies and perhaps even exceeds that of the rest of Africa. Anyone seeking to understand this complexity, rather than applying any of these old clichés, will now have to start with Leonardi’s important and sophisticated book.

It is perhaps not an easy read for those who know nothing of earlier literature on the region, and journalists or students with little knowledge of South Sudan might do better to start with more straightforward works such as Douglas Johnson’s The Root Causes of Sudan’s Civil Wars (James Currey, 2012). But Leonardi’s book will for a long time be central to any deeper understanding of political structures in the newest African country. She traces the twentieth-century history of political leadership in the region in a comprehensive, theoretically sophisticated, and empirically detailed manner that has not been attempted before by the many historians and anthropologists who have written about South Sudan.

The work is based on three urban centers—Juba, Yei, and Rumbek—which were at the heart of post-1900 regional political developments such as military slavery, colonialism, and nationalism. The author’s qualitative research in the area and archival knowledge provide a detailed account of how state—or statelike—structures were created on the ground in a remarkably unwelcoming environment. More rural areas might have different stories to tell, but Leonardi’s account will remain important to any understanding of this history. The towns were by no means completely severed from their rural hinterlands (the “bush”), although the “chiefs” were always primarily associated with the former, as the book’s analysis makes clear. Leonardi’s concept of “the urban frontier” will be particularly valuable to students of the wider Northeast African region, including northern Uganda, northwest Kenya, and northeast Congo.

The urban–rural distinction is also the background to other aspects of the analysis: for example, the competition between urban chiefs and more rural sources of authority, such as those with supernatural knowledge of rain or healing. But the chiefs had the ability to deal with the national (or potentially national) authorities, whether colonial or postcolonial, and this gave them an increasingly important role, even in the rural areas. The actions of the government were, like the weather or an illness, powerful, dangerous, and strange phenomena, which needed a specialist for interpretation and negotiation. Chiefship may not have been an ancient status, but it became an increasingly important one.

Leonardi’s book will be read by all serious Sudanists, but it should also be known more widely. South Sudan may seem to be (and has been portrayed as) a unique part of the continent, but many of the factors discussed here have parallels and comparisons elsewhere. The complex relationships between so-called traditional authorities and liberation movements, for example, have echoes in many other parts of Africa, as do the even more complicated dialectics of power between the town and the bush. Here the imaginary construction and expansion of the roles of the state and government, which form the focus of much of Leonardi’s work, are vital. This is an important book which should be read widely among all those concerned with African history and politics, not just Sudan specialists.