In recent years, important studies on the history of Saint Domingue and the Republic of Haiti have rectified, to a great extent, our previous ignorance about many issues related to this always-conflictive Caribbean territory. Tim Matthewson’s book constitutes a new effort to shed light upon the foreign policies developed by the first American administrations toward Saint Domingue and Haiti.
This ambitious book, written in an old-fashioned, solidly descriptive way, makes us wonder why scholars nowadays prefer to privilege their science over their historical subjects. Matthewson is, no doubt, a perfectionist writer with an unyielding knowledge of early American political thought. The book attempts to provide us with insight into the racial and geopolitical ideas of men such as George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and Alexander Hamilton. Matthewson’s delightful prose reconstructs a long-gone epoch in a way that stimulates our imagination and challenges our knowledge of history.
This is a...
