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Product Description
Review
A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice
“Well-written, authoritative history… enriched by careful attention to what Haitian intellectuals have had to say about their country over the last two centuries.”
—The New York Times Book Review
—The New York Times Book Review
“A sweeping, passionate history of Haiti... Smart, honest, and utterly compelling, this book is the national biography this country and its people deserve.”
—Boston Globe
“A book as welcome as it is timely: a lucid one-volume history of the nation, from Toussaint to the present, anchored in scholarship but rendered as a comprehensive-but-swift narrative for the general reader.”
—The Nation
“This excellent, engaging history seeks to strip away centuries of mocking and reductive bias. Dubois’s Haiti is a land of ceaseless activity, a ferment of suppression and insurrection exacerbated by the mercenary intrusions of foreign powers—in the past century, chiefly the United States. Dubois also traces a parallel history of bold social experiments on the part of everyday Haitians… Throughout, he makes clear how economic pressures and political crises have left even the county’s better leaders hamstrung, without downplaying their failures in fulfilling Haiti’s great promise.”
—The New Yorker
—The New Yorker
“An admirable chronicle… Reading Haiti: The Aftershocks of History, I was repeatedly struck by the deep and detailed explanations of things that had never quite made sense to me about Haiti. Those ‘aha’ moments were some of the most satisfying passages in this engrossing and deeply-researched book.”
—The Miami Herald
—The Miami Herald
“Fascinating… For anyone with even a little interest in Haiti, this book is an essential read.”
—Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
—Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
“Very few times have I been able to say that I learned something new about a subject with which I am ostensibly familiar. But this is the case on virtually every page of Laurent Dubois’s Haiti: The Aftershocks of History. Dubois, the veritable dean of Haitian studies, has produced that rarest of things: a highly entertaining narrative for the general reader, but one deeply satisfying to the scholar as well. This brilliant book, a compelling and colorful saga of the triumph and tragedy of Haitian revolution and freedom, should be required reading for anyone who wonders from whence the ‘curse on Haiti’ really emanated.”
—Henry Louis Gates Jr., The Alphonse Fletcher University Professor, Harvard University
—Henry Louis Gates Jr., The Alphonse Fletcher University Professor, Harvard University
“Laurent Dubois is an impeccable scholar and a master storyteller. Haiti: The Aftershocks of History is the new standard work in English on the astounding panorama of Haitian history, from the seismic events of its founding to the earthquake of 2010.”
—Madison Smartt Bell, author of All Souls’ Rising
—Madison Smartt Bell, author of All Souls’ Rising
“Haiti’s history is tragic and noble, worth knowing for its own sake and essential to the country’s future. This book is an admirable synthesis of that history—sensible, comprehensive, and gracefully written.”
—Tracy Kidder, author of Mountains Beyond Mountains
“A masterpiece… For those who, perusing the headlines, sometimes find themselves moved to ask the perennial question ‘Why is Haiti like that?,’ Laurent Dubois provides a brilliant and perceptive riposte. Wielding sharp, unsettling anecdotes and a flowing prose style, Dubois plumbs Haiti’s rich and singular history—with its unlikely heroes and persuasive demons, its exploiters and its misérables, its compromisers and its intransigents—to teach us important and subtle lessons in revolution, occupation, and liberation. These lessons go well beyond the concerns of Haitianists to encompass the great surge of human history, which may well be bearing us, today, toward another similar age of revolution and upheaval.”
—Amy Wilentz, author of The Rainy Season
Book Description
A passionate and insightful account by a leading historian of Haiti that traces the sources of the country's devastating present back to its turbulent and traumatic history
Even before the 2010 earthquake destroyed much of the country, Haiti was known as a benighted place of poverty and corruption. Maligned and misunderstood, the nation has long been blamed by many for its own wretchedness. But as acclaimed historian Laurent Dubois makes clear, Haiti's troubled present can only be understood by examining its complex past. The country's difficulties are inextricably rooted in its founding revolution—the only successful slave revolt in the history of the world; the hostility that this rebellion generated among the colonial powers surrounding the island nation; and the intense struggle within Haiti itself to define its newfound freedom and realize its promise.
Dubois vividly depicts the isolation and impoverishment that followed the 1804 uprising. He details how the crushing indemnity imposed by the former French rulers initiated a devastating cycle of debt, while frequent interventions by the United States—including a twenty-year military occupation—further undermined Haiti's independence. At the same time, Dubois shows, the internal debates about what Haiti should do with its hard-won liberty alienated the nation's leaders from the broader population, setting the stage for enduring political conflict. Yet as Dubois demonstrates, the Haitian people have never given up on their struggle for true democracy, creating a powerful culture insistent on autonomy and equality for all.
Revealing what lies behind the familiar moniker of "the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere," this indispensable book illuminates the foundations on which a new Haiti might yet emerge.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
4.3 out of 5 stars (10 customer reviews)
14 of 15 people found the following review helpful
5.0 out of 5 stars
A dispassionate examination of Haiti grounded in its history, Jan 16 2012
By N. C. Jewell - Published on Amazon.com
Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Haiti: The Aftershocks of History (Hardcover)
Having lived and worked in Haiti over a period of 40 years I approach any book and article about the country with great apprehension. So much of what is written is simplistic and judgmental, buying into one or another side of deeply polarizing issues, events, and personalities. This book beautifully conveys Haiti's complexity and puts it in historical context. For non Haitians who love Haiti as I do or for those who want to understand what lies beneath the country they know about only through the media, this is an excellent source of information. Thank you Laurent Dubois.
9 of 10 people found the following review helpful
4.0 out of 5 stars
INDISPENSABLE BOOK ON HAITIAN HISTORY BUT A BIT TOO SLANTED, Jan 22 2012
By JR Pinto - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Haiti: The Aftershocks of History (Hardcover)
I love Haiti and I am fascinated by its history. This book fills a much-needed gap - the history of Haiti from the revolution to the present. Presented here is a detailed and highly-readable account of events that many people may have heard about but never really read in detail. For example, many people know of the Duvalier regime, but much less famous are the leaders who came before them - knowing only that the government was "unstable." Dubois also makes a convincing argument against the US occupation - showing it as a time of humiliation and tyranny.On the negative side however, this book is anything but impartial. Dubois clearly loves Haiti so he engages in sometimes unconvincing mental gymnastics to defend Haiti and blame all its troubles on outsiders - usually the US. The review in the New York times put it best: "Seldom, however, can outsiders be blamed for all a country's troubles". For example, Dubois is perfectly happy to quote Faustin Wirkus when he is critical of the US, but disbelieves his story that the inhabitants of Ile de la Gonave made him king.
I also take exception to his depiction of NGOs after the quake - about that, he is just plain wrong. I've been to Port-au-Prince with one of those organizations and they - along with the US military and UN peacekeeping forces - are doing indispensable work down there. If Dubois sees them as yet another infringement of Haitian sovereignty than I and the Haitians I have met (in direct contradiction to his book) must disagree. If there were no NGOs in Haiti (including Sean Penn and his organization) than the effects of the earthquake would be incalculably worse. The unintentional conclusion that Dubois seems to be asking his readers to draw is that no one should interfere with Haiti in any way - don't go there, don't send money, don't do anything. I know he doesn't want that, and if that were to occur, then thousands more would be dying of hunger, disease, exposure, and violence.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
3.0 out of 5 stars
A Worthwhile Overview, But Lacking in Spots, Mar 4 2012
By KSF - Published on Amazon.com
This review is from: Haiti: The Aftershocks of History (Hardcover)
This book offers a solid overview of Haitian history from its inception to the present, and is a good starting place for any reader with an interest in but not much knowledge of Haitian history (like me). It is a long book but reads quickly and guides the reader among the many characters, periods, uprisings, and tragedies that have marked Haitian history. It also upends many common stereotypes held by Americans about Haitians and Haitian history. But while it is strong at explaining the 'what' of the story, it's much weaker at explaining the 'why.' Many major points seem to be assumed without sufficient explanation, and major happenings are described without providing the reader with a clear sense of the motivations behind them. It's a good book in that it piques the interest for more, but it's not sufficient by itself.
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