Justin Leach's readable study of how Sudan's peace agreements reflect political culture asks us to rethink some commonly held notions about war, peace and society in the two Sudans, and by extension some conflict resolution orthodoxies. The book ventures to analyse conflict resolution in a temporal dimension of successive peace agreements. It reviews how the two big peace agreements – the Addis Ababa Agreement (AAA) of 1972 and the Comprehensive Peace Agreement (CPA) of 2005 – were fought over in battle and at the table. In order to understand Sudan's political patronage culture, Leach comprehensively maps what demands were voiced by the two sides – the central government in Khartoum and the various incarnations of southern rebels – at different times, why these evolved, and how they were integrated into the bargaining process. He also focuses on evolving rebel motivations and changes in southern identity from the 1970s to the time of the signing of the CPA. Instead of a prolonged conflict interrupted by one peace agreement, what emerges are shifts in the shape of conflict.

The book's contribution thus lies in clearly presenting the history of Sudan's wars and peace agreements as a conflict trajectory, with detail on institutions and experiences often forgotten in less historical accounts. The author reminds us that Sudan's state structures had always been home to quasi-autonomous groups with little connection to the state. He convincingly illustrates conflict resolution concepts in practice by showing how mechanics shift rapidly depending on outside interests. At times, these concepts are analysed in depth and point towards broader issues outside the realm of this work, such as the tension between bridging ethnic gaps and emphasising tribal institutions or continued state-building as a political culture for which democracy is only a stopgap. Thus the book provides many paths towards a fresh perspective on the Sudans and broader conflict resolution concepts.

The weaknesses of the book are mainly that it does not deliver on some of its ambitions. First, Leach's treatment of identity, prominently foregrounded in the title, is perfunctory. While stressing the need to disaggregate the different and shifting ingredients for identity, the author employs the stereotypes the book aims to debunk. Even though Leach argues that southern identity was often primarily ‘shared frustration’ (p. 48), his claim that the Southern People's Liberation Army's (SPLA) identity as fighting for an equitable whole Sudan was proof for a new southern identity after the AAA is not convincing. This is particularly so because the author also discusses disappointments with factionalism and parliamentarism, which would suggest that the SPLA also instrumentalised identity in reaction to that experience. The notion of identity becomes cursory when the SPLA is treated as a coherent force representing all southerners. Equally problematic are sweeping conclusions derived from highly specific situations, such as the argument that the CPA delivered proof that ‘Africans’ had ‘been willing to put aside traditional post-colonial nationalism and look at new solutions to end the history of failed states’ (p. 75). Second, Leach uses established concepts like the war/peace dichotomy without enough questioning. While he successfully contextualises the two peace agreements in the patron-client culture, he does not apply the same perspective of continuation to the blurred line between war and peace, overlooking more recent findings that the years between 1955 and 1963 were largely peaceful, and that some official peace years were rather violent.

Nonetheless, Leach tackles the bigger questions of war and peace when he argues that in Sudan signatory parties remained disconnected from the formal democratic institutions that ought to help in implementing the agreed peace agreements and in driving change. The book thus provides an important launching pad from which to think about the complexities that continue to be at work in the realm between war, peace and political culture in Sudan and beyond, including the question of whether peace agreements are actually a crucial ingredient in transformative change.