The updated edition of this perceptive study could hardly appear at a more auspicious moment, as the latest phase of the tragedy of Haiti is unfolding. It brilliantly illuminates the rich tapestry of Haitian culture and reveals the remarkable resilience of the Haitian people, subjected to centuries of rapacity and violence and brutally punished for revealing the limited definition of freedom adopted by the French and American revolutions, in the author's accurate words. As he relates, they have continued to teach such lessons to this day, frightening the rich and powerful in their own tortured land and at the centers of global rule. It is our great loss if we choose not to understand, and there is no better starting point than this learned and penetrating inquiry.""- Noam Chomsky, Institute Professor Emeritus, Department of Linguistics and Philosophy, MIT