February 29th is the first (literal) anniversary of the last time that Aristide was overthrown as President of Haiti. Peter Hallward’s new book provides the inside account of events leading up to the coup, and their legacy.
Damming the Flood: Haiti, Aristide and the Politics of Containment
By Peter Hallward
UK publication: February 2008
US publication: April 2008
Paperback: ISBN 978 1 84467 106 9/ £16.99/ $29.95/ $37.50 CAN
Hardback: ISBN 978 1 84467 106 9/ £66.99/ $110.00/ $121.00 CAN
“Very convincing, a marvellous book. This riveting and deeply-informed account should be carefully read by those who recognize that Haiti’s tragic history is a microcosm of imperial savagery and heroic resistance – resistance which, as Hallward argues, will continue to shape Haiti’s political future if its people are granted the opportunity to take their fate into their own hands.” —Noam Chomsky
Once the most lucrative European colony in the Caribbean, Haiti has long been one of the most divided and impoverished countries in the world. In the late 1980s a remarkable popular mobilization known as Lavalas, or “the flood,” sought to liberate the island from decades of US-backed dictatorial rule. After winning a landslide election victory, in 1991 the Lavalas government led by President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was overthrown by a bloody military coup. ‘Damming the Flood’ analyzes how and why Aristide’s enemies in Haiti, the US and France made sure that his second government, elected with another overwhelming majority in 2000, was toppled by a further coup in 2004. The elaborate international campaign to contain, discredit and then overthrow Lavalas at the start of the twenty-first century was perhaps the most successful act of imperial sabotage since the end of the Cold War. Its execution and its impact have much to teach anyone interested
in the development of today’s political struggles in Latin America and the rest of the post-colonial world.
AUTHOR
Peter Hallward teaches at the Centre for Research in Modern European Philosophy at Middlesex University in the UK. Before moving to Middlesex he taught for several years in the French department at King’s College London. His research ranges across several debates in recent continental philosophy and the reception of post-colonial literature; he also works on some of the obstacles currently facing progressive political movements in various parts of the world. ‘Damming the Flood’ is his fourth book, after ‘Absolutely Postcolonial’, ‘Badiou: A Subject to Truth’, and ‘Out of this World: Deleuze and the Philosophy of Creation’.
Available from good bookshops and from the following:
http://www.versobooks.com/books/ghij/h-titles/hallward_p_haiti.shtml
In the UK:
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Damming-Flood-Aristide-Politics-Containment/dp/1844671062/ref=ed_oe_p?ie=UTF8&qid=1197385286&sr=1-1
In the US:
http://www.haitiliberte.com/damming.php.
http://www.amazon.com/Damming-Flood-Aristide-Politics-Containment/dp/1844671062/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1204216563&sr=1-1
Peter Hallward’s other articles and interviews about Haiti include:
* ‘Did He Jump or Was He Pushed? Aristide and the 2004 Coup in Haiti’, published in eight instalments in Haïti Liberté, October-November 2007, www.haitiliberté.com <http://www.haitiliberté.com/> ; available online at http://www.haitianalysis.com/2007/12/7/did-he-jump-or-was-he-pushed-aristide-and-the-2004-coup-in-haiti.
* ‘If Stones Could Float: The British Press and the Turks and Caicos Boat Disaster’, Radical Philosophy 145 (September 2007), 53-55. The complete version of this text is available online at http://haitianalysis.com/2007/9/4/if-stones-could-float-the-british-press-and-the-turks-and-caicos-boat-disaster.
* ‘Aristide and the Violence of Democracy’ [review of Alex Dupuy, The Prophet and Power, 2007], published in three instalments in Haiti Liberté numbers 1-3, July 2007; online at http://www.haitianalysis.com/2007/8/18/hallward-reviews-dupuy-s-the-prophet-and-power-jean-bertrand-aristide-the-international-community-and-haiti.
* ‘Insurgency and Betrayal: An Interview with Guy Philippe’, HaitiAnalysis 23 March 2007, http://www.haitianalysis.com/2007/3/25/insurgency-and-betrayal-an-interview-with-guy-philippe.
* ‘One Step at a Time: An Interview with Jean-Bertrand Aristide’, London Review of Books 29:4 (22 February 2007, http://www.lrb.co.uk/v29/n04/hall02_.html). The complete English transcript is available online at http://www.haitianalysis.com/2007/2/18/%E2%80%98one-step-at-a-time%E2%80%99-an-interview-with-jean-bertrand-aristide and in French at http://narconews.com/Issue45/article_fr2559.html.
* ‘Option Zero in Haiti,’ New Left Review 27 (May 2004), 23-47. http://www.newleftreview.net/NLR26102.shtml
* ‘Haitian Inspiration: Notes on the Bicentenary of Independence,’ Radical Philosophy 123 (January 2004), 2-7. http://www.radicalphilosophy.com/default.asp?channel_id=2187&editorial_id=14344 [Spanish translation in Metapolítica 36 (August 2004): http://www.metapolitica.com.mx/36/vimpresa/dossier/09.htm].
Contact:
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www.versobooks.com
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