Haiti and the United States: The Psychological Moment

The most comprehensive diplomatic and cultural history of Haiti-U.S. relations, tracing from the colonial Saint-Domingue trade networks through the 1791 revolution, the 1915–34 occupation, and the Cold War accommodation with the Duvalier dictatorship. Plummer argues that fear, fantasy, racial ideology, and cultural misreading consistently shaped U.S. conduct toward Haiti — that it was always more than a strategic problem — while also giving serious attention to Haitian agency, the interplay of négritude with U.S. exoticist tourism fantasies, and how cultural resistance sustained Haitian independence through overwhelming pressure.