Darfur is a region set apart: huge, remote, and poverty stricken. Its people are today locked in conflict, terrorized by the lawless Arab militia known as janjawid, which has created what the United Nations has called 'the world's worst humanitarian disaster'. As M. W. Daly, distinguished historian and long-term observer of the Sudan, explains, the roots of the crisis lie deep in Darfur's past. Tracing the story to the origins of the Fur state in the seventeenth century, through imperial expansion, revolution, and finally Darfur's annexation by the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, he shows how years of neglect left the region unprepared for independence. The final chapters focus on the years thereafter, as successive governments failed to rise to the challenges of institution building and economic and political administration, and the region descended into chaos. This is a complex and often harrowing story, told with compassion, insight, and a strong sense of place.