The ongoing crisis in Darfur confronts us with the remarkable phenomenon of scholars, anthropologists, legal minds, and activists documenting a lengthy genocide-in-progress, with all parties seemingly powerless to stop the carnage. How can such intolerable human rights atrocities receive almost universal attention and condemnation, yet draw so little concrete reaction from the global community?

That question forms the central subject of the essay collection The World and Darfur. Like any product of an academic conference, this volume tends toward repetition, a style redolent of postgraduate term papers, and a distance that presents the issue as a cold analysis of policy, not people.

Essays include an analysis of the recent history of the region, the policy and institutional barriers that prevent real progress, and the tunnel vision that sees Darfur through mainly white, Eurocentric eyes in print media, art exhibitions, and political activism. Ironically, a number of essays in this collection suffer from exactly this kind of blinkered vision.

Discussions of ways in which the world might have responded more decisively in Rwanda are well executed here, as are examinations of the ways in which debates over semantics – does Darfur constitute ethnic cleansing, a humanitarian crisis, or genocide? – become a sideshow that does nothing to help those suffering on the ground.

While the individual contributors raise many good questions, a coherent set of solutions remains elusive. The collection is also notable for the voices that are missing, especially that of leading African scholar Mahmoud Mamdani, whose challenging take on Darfur, although briefly referenced in the introduction, may have provided a deeper understanding of why so much of the interventionist spirit among activists and politicians alike is shortsighted and, possibly, counterproductive.

Gerald Caplan hints at this broader perspective in his passionate opening essay, which questions whether the war-on-terror co-operation between Sudanese intelligence services and the CIA is the real roadblock to any progress toward ending the bloodshed.

Although Darfur garners much of the world’s attention, millions of others in Sudan suffer the ravages of poverty and armed conflict spilling into their communities. One such war-torn village, Abyei, was recently home to a young Canadian doctor, James Maskalyk, whose memoir Six Months in Sudan recalls the sights and sounds of an impoverished medical outpost.

Maskalyk was posted there by Médicins Sans Frontières. Six Months is full of stories that range in format from ER drama (right down to his makeshift recreation of M*A*S*H-like operating room scenes) to blog entries Maskalyk wrote to update friends and family.

The author is an interesting, if not always sympathetic, individual who questions throughout why he has chosen to go to a place where he struggles constantly with the blistering heat, the parasites, his own deep-seated cynicism, and the emotional distancing that happens when one is surrounded by misery and death.

Inspired by culture shock upon his return to Canada and his inability to deal with questions about his experience, Maskalyk attempts to get it all down (perhaps as an act of decompression therapy), resulting in a work that, while interesting, is overly long and full of recalled dialogue that provides too much colour at the expense of keeping the story moving.

Indeed, it takes over 200 pages to sense the emotional kernel at the heart of the story: Maskalyk wants those of us in the comfortable West to really understand how bad it is in places like Sudan. A noble desire, but one that tends to get lost in the focus on Maskalyk’s own search for meaning, against which the people he treats often fade to backdrop.

While both The World and Darfur and Six Months in Sudan are important reminders of injustice a world away, it is not clear how they will ultimately engage and challenge readers to move beyond the very distancing syndrome they seek to eliminate.