Haiti: The Aftershocks of History - Softcover

Dubois, Laurent

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1250002362 ISBN 13: 9781250002365

Publisher: Picador Paper, 2013

Synopsis

Even before the recent 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 demonstrates, Haiti's troubles owe more to a legacy of international punishment for the original sin of staging the only successful slave revolt in the world. Dubois vividly depicts the isolation and impoverishment that followed the 1804 rebellion: the crushing indemnities imposed by the former French rulers, which initiated a cycle of debt; the multiple interventions by the U.S. armed forces, including a twenty-year occupation; and the internal divisions and political chaos that are the inevitable consequences of centuries of subversion. At the same time, he also explores Haiti's overlooked successes, as its revolution created a resilient culture insistent on autonomy and equality.

About this title

Review:

An authoritative history...Feels chillingly up to date. --Adam Hochschild, The New York Times Book Review

About the Author:

Laurent Dubois is the author of Avengers of the New World: The Story of the Haitian Revolution, a Los Angeles Times Best Book of 2004. The Marcello Lotti Professor of Romance Studies and History at Duke University, Dubois has written on Haiti for the Los Angeles Times,The Nation, and the New Yorker Web site, among other publications, and is the codirector of the Haiti Lab at the Franklin Humanities Institute. He lives in Durham, North Carolina.

About this edition

• Publisher: Picador Paper
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 1250002362
• ISBN 13: 9781250002365
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 446