The River War by Wiston Churchill

I just finished the book The River War by Winston Churchill. What a defining book. Churchill was 23 when he wrote this account of how Briton and Egypt reentered the Sudan after the battle at Khartoum in 1885, that killed the British General Gordon and saw the rise of one of Islam's Sudanese leaders, Mahdi, as well as the ultimate destruction of the Dervish Empire.

The young Churchill was a member of the 21st Lancers that took part in the attack on Omdurman that was the decisive battle for the Sudan. Churchill recounts the background to the war, the history of Sudan and it's peoples, as well as stories of the battles and hardship of the fighting soldiers.

Churchill would later receive a Nobel Price for literature for his efforts.

Given the on-going war that we face today in Iraq and Afghanistan, this book defines some of the operational history of Islam from a centuries ago, and even some background ideological reasoning for Islam's recent world wide attack on Western culture. A good read for sure.