In 1915, United States Marines arrived in Haiti to safeguard lives and property from the political instability of the time. While there, the Marine Corps controlled everything from finance to education, from health care to public works and built an army, “La Garde d’Haiti,” to maintain the changes it implemented. For one hundred years, thedecisions made by the United States about and for Haiti have, for better and worse, indelibly shaped the development of what is generally considered the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere.

In Contrary Destinies, Leon Pamphile chronicles the internal, external, and natural forces that have shaped the nation as it is today, striking a balance between the realities faced by the people on the island and the global and transnational contexts that affect their lives. He examines how American policies toward the Caribbean nation - during the Cold War and later as the United States became the sole world superpower - and the legacies of the occupation contributed to the gradual erosion of Haitian independence, culminating in a second occupation and the current United Nations peacekeeping mission.