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MEMOIRS AND BIOGRAPHY Deborah Scroggins. Emma's War: Love, Betrayal, and Death in the Sudan. New York: Pantheon Books, 2002. x + 390 pp. Maps. Notes. Bibliography. $25.00. Cloth.
If history is to be more than an account of events and dates, it must rely on the stories of the people who live it. This is the guiding principle for the Atlanta-based journalist Deborah Scroggins in her chronicle of the life of Emma McCune, the British-born wife of the Sudanese Nuer rebel leader Riek Machar, who has led various militias against both government-backed and rebel forces since the late 1980s. Equal parts biography, travelogue, and history, Scroggins's work transcends the limits of each genre, offering a unique examination of Riek, one of the most prominent and enigmatic figures in Sudan's civil war. The book is a beautifully written critique of the West's infatuation with Sudan and its disasters, one that may afford a broader public its first encounter with the country. Like Adam Hochschild's story of the Belgian Congo in King Leopold's Ghost (Macmillan, 1998), it is an accessible introduction to...