Daut, Marlene. Awakening the ashes: an intellectual history of the Haitian Revolution. North Carolina, 2023. 440p bibl index ISBN 9781469674742, $99.00; ISBN 9781469676845 pbk, $34.95.

Haiti may be the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere and among the most troubled by violent gang warfare, kleptocracy, insufficient health services and schooling opportunities, and poor governance. But, as this artful book shows so well, Haitians have a vigorous intellectual tradition with prolific authors who, decade after decade, inform their fellow citizens and the Francophone world about the true nature of slavery; the forces leading to their country's revolution; and how Haiti was, is, and should be governed. Haitians painstakingly documented the cruelties inflicted upon them by French plantation owners and French colonial violence, crafting in the process an articulate historiography that is uniquely Haitian, important also as a striking national narrative of endured racism and subjection. Although methodologically this book is a history of ideas, its gifted author explores sociohistorical questions at the core of Haiti's evolution. She salutes Haitians for their meticulous recordkeeping, their engaged pamphleteering, and their imaginative gathering and rendering of oral history. Daut (French and African American studies, Yale Univ.) superbly captures how Haitians reflected on their self-created sovereignty amid endless French and American attempts to undermine and negate what the Haitians had so painfully achieved.

--R. I. Rotberg, Harvard University