In July of 2011, the Republic of South Sudan declared independence from the north, effectively ending Africa's longest running civil war. The Sudan Peoples' Liberation Movement, a primarily southern rebel and political force, achieved this outcome by initiating peace negotiations as a united front. Beginning in 2005 and lasting six years, the Comprehensive Peace Agreement made unity palatable to the south's diverse population and interests. While the agreement ultimately failed, it did result in southern Sudan's nearly unanimous vote for independence. Since then, violence has returned to the region, with many now fearing that South Sudan will devolve again into war. With the regime in Khartoum richly benefitting from factionalism, maintaining a durable peace seems impossible, and bringing any resolution to the issues that have long dogged Sudan's southerners -- ineffectual governance, widespread exploitation and resentment, and ethnic marginalization -- seem many years away. Gaining unique access to closed societies and making use of extensive ethnographic research, this volume assesses both the social and political dynamics that have fueled the country's remarkable transformation and the pressures that threaten to tear its statehood apart.