Liberty, Fraternity, Exile: Haiti and Jamaica after Emancipation

Smith's Liberty, Fraternity, Exile: Haiti and Jamaica after Emancipation is one of the best comparative histories and best recent works on Haiti I have encountered in quite some time. Smith carefully weaves together different tapestries of Jamaica and Haiti's pasts, highlighting the numerous instances in which Haiti and Jamaica were bound together by the vagaries of race, colonialism, and encroaching US dominance of the Caribbean by the early 1900s. In addition, Smith's prose is more engaging and succeeds in breathing life into the various civil wars and coups in Haitian history. Moreover, Smith manages to find that elusive land between academic and accessible, making the Morant Bay Rebellion and the plethora of coups in Haitian history comprehensible. In addition, some of the deeper nuances of late 19th century Haitian history and the uncovered new ground of Jamaica's historical links to Haiti make for fascinating reading.