On February 29, 2004, the first democratically elected president of Haiti, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, was forced to leave his country. The president was kidnapped, along with his Haitian-American wife, by American soldiers and flown to the isolated Central African Republic. In An Unbroken Agony, best-selling author and social justice advocate Randall Robinson chronicles his own cross-Atlantic journey to rescue the Haitian president from captivity in Africa while also connecting the fate of Aristide's presidency to the Haitian people's century-long quest for self-determination.

On February 29, 2004, the first democratically elected president of Haiti, Jean-Bertrand Aristide, was forced to leave his country. The president was kidnapped, along with his Haitian-American wife, by American soldiers and flown to the isolated Central African Republic. In An Unbroken Agony, best-selling author and social justice advocate Randall Robinson chronicles his own cross-Atlantic journey to rescue the Haitian president from captivity in Africa while also connecting the fate of Aristide’s presidency to the Haitian people’s century-long quest for self-determination.

Presents an exploration of the turbulent history of Haiti, from Columbus's arrival to the abduction of former president Jean-Bertrand Aristide in 2004, and the nation's ongoing struggle to achieve stability and prosperity.

Haiti has long been both a source of immense pride--because of the Haitian Revolution--and of profound disappointment--because of the unshakable realities of poverty, political instability, and violence--to the black diasporic imagination. Charting the long history of these multiple meanings is the focus of Millery Polyne's rich and critical transnational history of U.S. African Americans and Haitians. Stretching from the thoughts and words of American intellectuals such as Frederick Douglass, Robert Moton, and Claude Barnett to the Civil Rights era, Polyne's temporal scope is breathtaking. But just as impressive is the thematic range of the work, which carefully examines the political, economic, and cultural relations between U.S. African Americans and Haitians. From Douglass to Duvalier examines the creative and critical ways U.S. African Americans and Haitians engaged the idealized tenets of Pan Americanism--mutual cooperation, egalitarianism, and nonintervention between nation-states--in order to strengthen Haiti's social, economic, and political growth and stability. The depth of Polyne's research allows him to speak confidently about the convoluted ways that these groups have viewed modernization, "uplift," and racial unity, as well as the shifting meanings and importance of the concepts over time.

"Dr. Paul Farmer is one of the most extraordinary people I've ever known. Partner to the Poor recounts his relentless efforts to eradicate disease, humanize health care, alleviate poverty, and increase opportunity and empowerment in the developing world. It will inspire us all to do our parts."--William J. Clinton "If the world is curious about Paul Farmer, there is a reason for that. No one has done more than he has in bringing modern medicine to the poor across the globe and no one has exceeded him in making us appreciate the diverse barriers that prevent proper medicine from reaching the underdogs of the world. In this wonderful collection of essays, putting together Paul Farmer's writings over more than two decades, we can see how his far-reaching ideas have developed and radically enhanced the understanding of the challenges faced by healthcare in the uneven world in which we live. This is an altogether outstanding book."--Amartya Sen, Nobel Laureate, Economics "To delve into these pages is to join one of the world's great explorers on an epic life journey--to grapple with culture, poverty, disease, health care, ethics, and ultimately our common humanity in the Age of AIDS. Paul Farmer is a pioneer, guide, and inspiration at a time of unprecedented contrasts: between wealth and poverty, power and powerlessness, health and disease, compassion and neglect. His medical expertise, anthropological vision, and unflinching decency have helped to recharge our world with moral purpose."--Jeffrey D. Sachs, Columbia University "Wow! Perfect for teaching. This is more than vintage Farmer. Editor Haun Saussy knows Farmer's work inside out and has assembled and organized 25 classic articles that project the heart of Farmer's brilliant, radical, inspiring, eminently practical and (dare I say) genuinely subversive work."--Philippe Bourgois, author of Righteous Dopefiend "If they gave Nobel Prizes for raising moral awareness, Paul Farmer would have won his a long time ago. For several decades now, his work has posed a challenge to anyone who dares say that radically improving the health of the world's poor can't be done. This splendid compilation of the best of his work allows us to follow a restless, creative, compassionate mind in action, in and out of prisons and barrios and mud huts and hospital wards, from Haiti to Rwanda to Moscow, never taking 'no' for an answer."--Adam Hochschild, author of Bury the Chains "Paul Farmer is a deep scholar of Haitian society, a formidable medical anthropologist, an implacable theorist of structural violence and health as a human right, and an ethicist for whom the place of social justice in medicine and in the world is an existential need. This book is the platform of interconnected intellectual, academic, and practical engagements upon which the amazing, world-transforming life of Farmer stands."--Arthur Kleinman, author of What Really Matters: Living a Moral Life amidst Uncertainty and Danger "This collection shows the impressive catalytic effects of original scholarship when combined with action, activism, and a commitment to social justice in health. Paul Farmer and his PIH colleagues have twice changed World Health Organization policies; they continue to have a lasting impact on the global health movement and on the lives of the poor.--Peter Brown, Emory University

The issues arising from rapid global integration have generally been treated in isolation by most academic works. This volume examines the many pitfalls of globalization from the perspective of impoverished and indigenous peoples, including the widening wealth gap, the struggle for restoration of dispossessed lands and cultural rights, global warming and ecological annihilation, and the experiences of women in underdeveloped regions. The United States' growing prison industrial complex is discussed. The author concludes with a call for reassessing current ways of living and proposes recreating cultures of conservation and sustainable economies. Instructors considering this book for use in a course may request an examination copy here.

Even before the 2010 earthquake, Haiti was known as a benighted place of poverty and corruption, and has often been blamed for its own wretchedness. But as historian Laurent Dubois makes clear, its difficulties are rooted in its founding revolution, the only successful slave revolt in the history of the world; the hostility that this rebellion generated among the colonial powers; and the intense struggle within Haiti itself to define its newfound freedom and realize its promise. Dubois vividly depicts the isolation and impoverishment that followed the 1804 uprising. He details how the indemnity imposed by the former French rulers initiated a devastating cycle of debt, while frequent interventions by the United States further undermined Haiti's independence. At the same time, Dubois shows, the internal debates about what Haiti should do with its hard-won liberty alienated the nation's leaders from the broader population, setting the stage for enduring political conflict. Yet the Haitian people have never given up on their struggle for true democracy.--From publisher description.