An important addition to the historiography of modern Sudan. . [It] will be very important reading for anyone who is interested not only in modern Sudanese history but also in gaining a better understanding of the complex relations between State and army.
DIGEST OF MIDDLE EAST STUDIES, vol. 22, no. 1
In examining martial race theory and British/Sudanese relationships, Lamothe adds to the historiography of imperial history. [The book] is an important contribution to the history of Great Britain's campaigns along the Nile from 1896-8. [...] General readers of military history as well as scholars will learn much.
AFRICAN HISTORY
As well as being of obvious interest to military historians, this book gives an insight into a particular class of slaves in Africa, one that had existed in one form or another since the Pharaohs.
BASA NEWSLETTER
Thorough, extensive and well documented.
SUDAN STUDIES
'This is 'history from below' that rescues Sudanese soldiers from the shadows to which they were relegated in the contemporary accounts of the River War and also in most subsequent histories. So it adds a new dimension to the much tilled fields of Sudan's recent military and social history.
- David Killingray,