374pp., colour illus., map, paperback, Profile Books, London, (2025) 2026

ISBN: 9781788166461

An account of the Sahara, the Earth's largest hot desert, that covers the history of the region from the ancient Roman Empire to the present, as well as the geology, religions, languages and cultural and political forces that shape and divide it.

“For the first time, in this excellent book, the Sahara is given a present and a past as seen from the inside, rather than through the distorting projections of outsiders who want to cross or control its supposed emptiness. Judith Scheele is an ethnographer of the region who has long displayed astonishing range, skill, and courage. Here she shows herself to be a masterly historian too. She tracks between the present day and deep time to reveal her subject ‘from the bottom up.’ Read her beautifully written and compelling account, ready for every preconception you might have held about its subject matter to be overturned. Peregrine Horden, All Souls College, Oxford

“Through her extensive travels across its fabled landscapes, Judith Scheele opens the hidden world of the Sahara from every point of the compass. Combining the life experiences of the women and men she encountered in years of anthropological research with a deep dive into scholarship spanning prehistoric to modern times, Scheele takes us to places we will probably never see for ourselves, and makes us wish that we could. A brilliant, unforgettable book.” Eugene Rogan, author of The Damascus Events

Social anthropologist Judith Scheele holds a professorship at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales in France. She has spent almost two decades living in and researching Saharan societies, with a focus on Algeria, Mali and Chad and more recently on northern Sudan and its borders with Libya and Egypt. She is the author of Smugglers and Saints of the Sahara: Regional connectivity in the twentieth century and Village Matters: Knowledge, politics and community in Kabylia, Algeria.

SHIFTING SANDS, a human history of the Sahara

: Scheele (J.)

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