Gordon and the Sudan: Prologue to the Mahdiyya 1877-1880 - Review

Contemporary Review, Sept, 2001

Gordon and the Sudan: Prologue to the Mahdiyya 1877-1880. Alice Moore-Harell. Frank Cass. [pound]39.50 (US$54.50). 286 pages. ISBN 07146-5081-1. Charles George Gordon was one of Victorian Britain's greatest heroes, a man regarded by many as a Christian martyr who died at the hands of Mohammedan fanatics.

The modern historian, however, must take a detached view. Miss Moore-Harell, who teaches in the Department of Islam and the Middle East at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, here attempts 'to describe and analyse the political, economic and social changes and developments in the Sudan during Gordon's administration of 1877-80'. She also sets these changes against those occurring in Egypt at the time and against the Mahdist uprising. Did, she asks, Gordon's rule 'herald the beginning of the end of the Turco-Egyptian regime in the Sudan, and did it enhance the emergence of another period in Sudanese history ... the Mahdiyya?' The author analyses Gordon's rule and its policies on tax, the economy, religion, sla very, law, education and public health. She shows how local resentment at having a Christian Governor was the basis of protests while Gordon's desire to stamp out slave trading led to the most famous uprising of all. This book sheds new light on a chapter of British Imperial history that has been neglected by historians for far too long.