Famine that Kills: Darfur, Sudan (Revised Edition). Alex De Waal. New York: Oxford University Press, 2005. 258 pp.

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'It is deeply sad that Darfur should not only be a textbook study of famine, but of genocide as well.' (Alex De Waal)

From this deep concern over Darfur, Alex De Waal felt the need to assess and understand what has changed in a region currently considered to represent the world's worst humanitarian disaster. Almost twenty years after the first edition of Famine that Kills, and despite the author's recognition of some of the methodological limitations of the book and the evolution of humanitarian studies, the relevance of the book remains unquestioned. With an unchanged version of Famine that Kills, this new edition remains challenging for academics, practitioners and everyone concerned with the effectiveness of humanitarian relief. When it was first published and drawing significantly from the author's experience in the field, the book was a study of the famine which struck Darfur during 1984-85, focusing mainly on the tension between conflicting understandings of famine. It was, and to a certain extent still is, essentially a critical analysis of dominant literature and practice on famine relief and an attempt to change the way in which the affluent world understands and addresses famine crises in poor countries.

Refusing to be part of a new orthodoxy imposed on poor societies, De Waal assumes a rather critical stance, manifestly against a sterile agenda of relief to respond to famines and in favour of a redefined one, focused on the voiced concerns of rural people and the principles that underlie their actions. In 1989, the book aimed to start a fundamental dialogue between 'outsiders' and the rural people victims of famines. Today, this goal remains largely unchanged, as well as the book's main challenges, i.e. the need to problematize the concept of famine and challenge the assumption that outsiders naturally know what famine is and what is the best way to put an end to it. In a particularly interesting and acute new preface, De Waal seeks to understand what has changed since then and what lessons have been learned by the international community in its responses to famine and crises of massacres and displacement. Despite an increased knowledge base about famines and the strategies to respond to them, as well as the adoption of codes of conduct and professional standards, the author argues that there are still important limitations, since there has not been a full translation of such increased expertise into more effective relief operations. The dialogue that Alex De Waal attempted to initiate between relief agencies and the people they serve remains tenuous, because the necessary preconditions- effective self-scrutiny, willingness to be patient and listen hard by those involved with famine relief- are still largely absent. Lamenting the lack of real progress in the analysis of the reality of rural people and also the continued neglect of the need to support their survival strategies, De Waal notes that most international writing and practice on the current famine in Darfur continues to mistakenly assume that relief food will make the biggest difference to the survival of these populations. In fact, to appreciate De Waal's critique of this ineffectiveness of international agencies' interventions, it is essential to understand and acknowledge that the impact of external relief programs may often be modest when compared to the far greater contribution to survival of traditional strategies and livelihoods maintained by people's own efforts.

In this new preface, and faced with the current tragic circumstances of the people in Darfur, De Waal also tries to understand the roots of current violence in the region and the origins of the massacres occurring ever since 2003. Acknowledging the existence of complex and overlapping identities in Darfur he thus examines, among other things, questions related to the roles of land, settlement disputes, national politics and ideology, which are key issues if one is to understand Darfur and the conflicts therein, and which must be addressed when responding to what is happening in the region. Recognizing an ongoing 'genocide' in Darfur, which fits the definition contained in the 1948 Genocide Convention, i.e. campaigns against ethnic groups with the intention of eliminating them in part or in a whole, as a consequence of a deliberate governmental military strategy, the author alerts us however to the mistakes of seeing it as a 'genocide' in the sense of absolute extermination of a population, and to the dangers of a refusal to respond appropriately.

But despite an unmasked scepticism, this revised edition ends with a note of hope: the hope that if the people of Darfur are provided with security, human rights, political representation, and the opportunity to pursue their livelihoods and develop their region, they will surely use their energy and determination to good effect. As De Waal so correctly observes, "outsiders should be humble in the face of the lived experience of surviving genocide. The people of Darfur have shown resilience in surviving famine: let us hope they have the same skills when faced with genocidal massacres."

Famine that Kills keeps on reminding us, then, that there is no universally applicable panacea to end famine or war, and that it is mainly people's own efforts, made possible by security in rural areas, effective health services and real international commitment that will help do that.

Daniela Nascimento
University of Coimbra, Portugal