Prologue: the inauguration of the Merowe Dam -- State-building, the environment and the civilisation mission -- Hydraulic civilisation and land of famine: the crafting of the Sudanese state and its sources of power -- Mashru al-Hadhari: the rise of Sudan's Al-Ingaz regime and its civilisation project -- The hydro-political economy of Al-Ingaz: economic salvation through "dams as development" -- The geopolitics of the Nile: Khartoum's dam programme and agricultural revival in the global political economy -- Military-Islamist state-building and its contradictions: mirages in the desert, South Sudan's secession and the new hydropolitics of the Nile -- Conclusion: water, civilisation and power -- Appendix: elite interviews and in-depth testimonies.