Shifting Sands

A fascinating travelogue and history of the world's largest hot desert ... Fresh, original and energising * The Times *
Scheele presents a detailed, often gritty, picture of a fragile world. Her travels trace the web of exchanges, linguistic and material, that crisscross a harsh, vast and sometimes impassable terrain ... Instead of "mental maps of vertical and historically immutable trade routes," Scheele finds a pattern of pathways that, like the grazing routes of the pastoralists' livestock, shifts with changes in climate, economics and politics ... this is a clearsighted and unsentimental study of life on the edge. -- Dominic Green * Wall Street Journal *
Scheele unveils [a] meticulously investigated narrative, to reveal the realities of the Earth's largest desert. She questions the standard bird's-eye view and zooms in to examine the details ... [and] takes the reader from the ancient Roman Empire to modern African countries and the scenes of contemporary regional battles, exposing fascinating truths about desert life along the journey -- Jules Stewart * Geographical *
A captivating and indispensable work: Scheele clears the dust from our eyes to reveal the intricacies of a region few of us know nearly as well as we might believe. -- Maxim Samson, author of Invisible Lines
A gritty, deeply engaged, history of the fusion of peoples whose homeland is the Sahara. This is a fascinating and intimate perspective of the region from the ground-up: complete with plastic sandals, smugglers, migrants, border boom towns upheld by the Sahara's enduring love affair with both camel and truck -- Barnaby Rogerson, author * In Search of Ancient North Africa *
A stunningly original and deeply empathetic guided tour of the world's greatest desert ... This is far and away the best book on a distant place that might represent our near future -- Gregory Mann, Professor of History, Columbia University
In this excellent book, the Sahara is given a present and a past as seen from the inside ... 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
Praise for Smugglers and Saints of the Sahara: 'An irresistible read ... something particular and intensely human' -- Deborah Harrold * The Journal of North African Studies *
An academic page-turner ... brilliantly written and thrilling to read -- Roman Loimeier * Africa *
A must-read for anyone interested in the region -- Ghislaine Lydon - University of California, Los Angeles
Scholarship is impressive, arguments convincing; this is the book many who know the Sahara will wish they had written -- E. Ann McDougall - University of Alberta