Customer Reviews

Making Haiti: Saint Domingue Revolution From Below

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This book is not only a great companion to CLR James' classic, The Black Jacobins, it also initiates a deeper understanding of the forces and factors that were at the root of the revolution. Whereas James' work tends to mythesize leaders, particularly Toussaint, Fick's work is more likely to detail specific battles and events with information on multiple actors. The only trouble is that Fick's book lacks some of the moral indignation that James had as well as his interest in connecting the Haitian Revolution to the political context of modern times. This makes the book more "scholarly" but less compelling. This is a small drawback, however, for those already impassioned about the subject.

A new most important aspect of Fick's book is her emphasis and redefinition of the role of the maroons (escaped slaves). Whereas many times the maroons are portrayed as only peripheral actors or precedents to the revolution, Fick's work shows that the community of escaped slave, a very broad category, was one of the main forces at work in the revolution.

This book is a must for understanding maroonage, the Haitian Revolution, and a historical investigative method that is liberating!

How to follow in the footsteps of a great historian? One answer is found in this important successor to CLR James's

Fick's book reveals unknown aspects of the haitian revolution: the fundamental role of the masses without witch the revolution would not have taken place. This book is for anyone who is trying to understand the haitian revolution from the people's point of view. It is the equivalent of Zen's People's history of the U.S.