Just a few years before the dawn of the digital age, Harvard psychologist Bert Kaplan set out to build the largest database of sociological information ever assembled. It was the mid-1950s, and social scientists were entranced by the human insights promised by Rorschach tests and other innovative scientific protocols. Kaplan, along with anthropologist A. I. Hallowell and a team of researchers, sought out a varied range of non-European subjects among remote and largely non-literate peoples around the globe. Recording their dreams, stories, and innermost thoughts in a vast database, Kaplan envisioned future researchers accessing the data through the cutting-edge Readex machine. Almost immediately, however, technological developments and the obsolescence of the theoretical framework rendered the project irrelevant, and eventually it was forgotten.

The book focuses on Aristide's political career, emphasizing his strategizing, compromising and dealing with the Clinton administration. In his presentation of the conflict, Girard carefully balances Aristide's and Clinton's needs, and the demands and moral positions the leaders make against each other - the result is that each leader and his constituency comes to life, and their maneuverings and decisions become engaging and meaningful. While Girard focuses on the conflict itself and the foreign policy dynamics at play between Haiti and the US, he also paints a compelling picture of contemporary Haiti and delineates with great clarity the tensions which led to recent violence and the deposition of Aristide.