Completing my crash reading course on Haitian history with this excellent book on the two centuries *after* the drama of the war for independence. us.macmillan.com/books/97808050… 
Aftershocks of History by @Soccerpolitics does a masterly job of summarizing the often dizzying tumult of Haitian political history - without being distracted from the slower movements of social history: issues of land, labor, status. 2/x
@Soccerpolitics It's grim reading reading on the role of foreign powers, first France, then the United States. In 1856, the US grabbed an island generally regarded as Haitian territory to help itself to guano supplies without paying for them. It's still a US territory. doi.gov/oia/islands/na…
@Soccerpolitics In the 1870s Ulysses Grant schemed to annex first what's now the Dominican Republic - but I had not known that he intended Haiti as a second bite. 4/x
@Soccerpolitics The US occupation of Haiti in 1915 led to the reimposition of forced labor by US authorities, some of whom nostalgically regretted the end of slavery. 5/x
@Soccerpolitics Bad neighbors alone don't explain all of Haiti's problems: ecological, social, and political. But they haunt the story then and now. END
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