The Making of Haiti: The Saint-Domingue Revolution from Below

The first comprehensive attempt to write the Saint-Domingue revolution from the perspective of the enslaved masses rather than elite leaders, applying the methodology of 'history from below' to show that the revolution succeeded because of the autonomous organizational capacity and revolutionary consciousness of the enslaved — not merely because they followed charismatic leaders. Especially important for its treatment of the Bois Caïman ceremony as both a political assembly and ritual act, its argument that marronage and revolution were intertwined rather than separate phenomena, and its recovery of the neglected South Province through the 'Kingdom of Platons' maroon community.