Customer Reviews

The United States Occupation of Haiti, 1915-1934

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This is a fair & balanced review of a very interesting historical period. It certainly reads like a text book but the material covered keeps it interesting. It lacks any coverage of Charlemagne Peralte and the caco resistance which would seem to be an important chapter during the occupation. Although the results of the occupation were a disappointment I get the feeling that it was not an intentionally evil enterprise as other authors conclude. I have not come across a comparable book covering the occupation and thus would recommend this without reservation to interested readers.

New York Times review of the book Sep 26, 1971:

Pedestrian (lacking wit or imagination) but caustic (harsh or corrosive in tone) and thorough history of the US intervention in Haiti. Prevailing imperialistic and racist attitudes in America, coupled with a fatuous (unconsciously foolish) faith in technological progress, accounted for the involvement. The National City Bank had investments in Haiti, but American policy according to the Hans Schmidt, was more the result of fears that European countries, specifically France and Germany, had their eyes on the Caribbean. This is a good history of a sordid intervention that submitted a people to autocratic military rule and did little for economic development. Parallels with our recent Vietnam venture are not out of place.

Hans Schmidt was one of the first people to write on this topic with sources that the Navy and Marine Corps declassified within 15 years of its writing. Schmidt approached this book much as a scholar offering an even handed approach that helps the readers understand why the Americans were there in the first place. The book exposes the good and bad that the Americans did there, from the modernizing the roads (admittedly this was as much for military purposes as civilian) to the racist attitude that most of the Marines on Haiti had (remember the Marine Corps was an all white organization at the time). He does a good job explaining the background of the intervention and how the United States invoked the Monroe Doctrine to keep the Europeans out. Though this book is rather dry at times, it is written well and Schmidt gets his point across. Overall I would say that this is a great book for someone looking for scholarly work on the subject, but other than that I think that most average readers would find it dry and boring.