Emma's War

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Summary: Glamour comes to wartime Sudan
Review: If a proposed movie of "Emma's War" starring Nicole Kidman is made, Emma McCune may well become the most famous aid worker of all time. That's a shame because, as this book makes clear, her accomplishments were modest. Emma had a flair for drama and publicity and a pair of long legs instead of a brain. One suspects that she would have tired of the hardships of life in the Sudanese bush and gone back to England to become a fashion designer or some such thing.

The humanitarian aid workers are the modern day missionaries of Western civilization. All in all, they do more good than harm, although Emma may be the exception. Deborah Scroggins has written an excellent book about the brutal two decade long civil war in Sudan and the foreign aid workers who keep the innocent victims of the war alive. The politics are here in easily digestible chunks and so is a mini-history of Sudan since the time of the Victorian hero "Chinese" Gordon. The author includes some of her own experiences of witnessing starvation in Sudan.

One insight of this book is that Western governments want not so much to do anything about African catastrophes as to be seen to do something. Their indifference to African suffering is more than matched by African leaders. Two million people are estimated to have died in the civil wars in Sudan during the last 20 years, the vast majority of them noncombatants. A soldier with a rifle seems the least likely person to die in African conflicts.

Smallchief



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Summary: Great Read - educational and entertaining
Review: Emma's War is a story of blind love in a tragic place. Emma's addition to Sudan and love for her people were spellbounding to read about. Deborah Scroggins' personal accounts made the story come to light. This is one of the most enjoyable, educational, and entertaining books I have read in a good while.

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Summary: Raw and Incredible Look at Sudan's Aid Community
Review: I'm an NGO worker in a post-conflict society, and was intrigued at reading this account of one woman's experience in the Sudanese aid community, and her subsequent marriage to a warlord. My fears of this being a book too bogged by history/biography were quickly tossed aside...Emma's War is so engaging because it is actually three stories in one: the story of an English woman who married a Sudanese rebel, the contentious history of southern Sudan, and a very delightful first-person narrative about the author herself and her experiences with the first two.

What I like so much about this book is that it never takes sides; Scroggins is somewhat sympathetic towards Emma, but never apologetic over her (sometimes) inhumane actions. This book also really illuminates the situation in Darfur now, and how the conflict of the last 20 years has fueled the current crisis there. I'd call it a must-read for anyone interested in the region, and anyone struggling to understand the conflicts of interest between humanitarian aid and armed conflict.

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Summary: Not a love story.
Review: Scroggins' account of the Sudanese war is not for pleasure reading. Scroggins presents the horrors of the Sudanese civil war in their naked and atrocious form, without the embellishment or emotional pandering some writers may use. The author is incredibly insightful and offers a unique perspective on humanitarian aid efforts arround the world. She attempts to move humanitarians outside their comfort zones and uncovers the true effects of their help. Incredibly cynical but worth the read for anyone who looks for the causes behind the atrocities in Sudan.


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Summary: A brief view of innocents caught in war, and the UN's role
Review: While portrayed as a a slightly disjointed account of adventuress and naive victem Emma McClune, the book takes a winding, history laden account of the conflict in Sudan, the power players who profit from keeping the country in flames, and the ineptness of the UN in all aspects. The author, Deborah Scroggins, spent quite a bit of time in Sudan as a reporter, logging eye-witness accounts of attrocities on both sides of the conflict, reports by other investigators about such things as government sanctioned genocide, and the seeming inability of western aid groups to understand the situation let alone help end it. This book has sent me on a much larger search for the UN's usefullness, the politics behind aid groups, and the indemic conflicts of Africa. A great starting point for anyone interested in why US troops are overseas, the politics of Islam and Osama bin Laden (who got a great start in Sudan), and the questions we should all be asking about why the situations are not getting better.