Rebel rulers: insurgent governance and civilian life during war

peace processes. This serves as an important reminder that although the civil wars dominate southern Sudan’s post-independence history, they are not the only interesting aspect of the history of South Sudan. Commenting on her interviews with people who endured two wars, she notes, “war appears as a context for people’s life stories, rather than as the focus in itself of their narratives” (144). If there is a criticism of this book, it is that it largely avoids discussion of religious life, a central part of southern Sudanese social life. In her conclusion, Leonardi argues that “chiefs have been central to that remaking of the local state, not because they are, or have ever been, the sole interlocutors or authorities, but because chiefship is above all the institutionalised expression of the frontier itself” (220). It would be interesting to know the ways in which Christian leaders have come to occupy similar roles in the way they mediate relationships between a local community and a hakuma that now makes itself known not only as an independent state but also as an overwhelming array of international organisations. Leonardi briefly mentions, for instance, the way in which an Episcopal bishop and a Catholic priest led their people into exile from Yei in the early 1990s, but leaves this largely unanalysed as an example of community-hakuma relations. Are there other such stories that remain to be told? Such issues could form the basis of future research, building on Leonardi’s exceptional effort.