The title promises a history of Haiti, but Robinson (The Debt
, etc.) delivers a brief for former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide and an excoriation of American policies and actions related to his exile. The portrait of Aristide borders on hagiography: “Of all the public Christians I have known personally, Aristide led a life that emulated the implacable Christ whose sympathies for the poor Aristide had since childhood taken to heart.” The Americans, meanwhile, are largely portrayed as evil: “American officials had armed and directed the thugs, organized an unelected and unelectable opposition, and choked the Haitian economy into dysfunctional penury.” Robinson's righteous outrage often turns to rant, and his passionate, partisan account veers into repetition, without providing adequate context for his ire. He offers minute descriptions of Artistide's abduction to the Central African Republic in September 1994, his flight and the efforts to save and relocate him, but spends little time on Aristide's governance as Haiti's first democratically elected leader. “For the uninitiated, Haiti must appear to be a bewildering stew of obscure and violent events,” Robinson writes. How sad that he did not use these pages to clarify the broth. (Aug.)
