Free Ebook Toussaint Louverture: A Biography, by Madison Smartt Bell
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Toussaint Louverture: A Biography, by Madison Smartt Bell
Free Ebook Toussaint Louverture: A Biography, by Madison Smartt Bell
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Review
“A brilliant and truly gripping biography.” —The New York Review of Books“Epic. . . .The best biography of Toussaint yet.” —The New York Times Book Review“Bell has stripped away the myths—demonology as well as hagiography—to give us a nuanced, sympathetic portrait of a complicated, tragic, but undeniably heroic figure.” —Minneapolis Star-Tribune“An excellent introduction to one of the great, if elusive, personalities of history.” —The Boston Review
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About the Author
Madison Smartt Bell has published twelve novels and two collections of short stories. His novels include Soldier's Joy, Dr. Sleep, Ten Indians, and Save Me, Joe Louis. His eighth novel, All Souls' Rising, was a finalist for the National Book Award and the PEN/Faulkner Award. Bell, a Professor of English and Director of the Kratz Center for Creative Writing at Goucher College, lives in Maryland with his family.
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Product details
Paperback: 352 pages
Publisher: Vintage; 1st edition (January 8, 2008)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1400079357
ISBN-13: 978-1400079353
Product Dimensions:
5.2 x 0.8 x 8 inches
Shipping Weight: 8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
Average Customer Review:
3.3 out of 5 stars
15 customer reviews
Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
#525,504 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
This is one of the most riveting biographies or history books I've read, a page turner filled with so much political intrigue it left my mind reeling. But the most remarkable part of the book is Toussaint Louverture himself, a former slave who raised mules on a plantation, gained his freedom, became a plantation owner himself, raised a European-style military to overthrow slaveowners, fought off invasions from the English and Spanish, took over Spanish Hispaniola, and set up his own government until Napoleon sent his veterans to reclaim the colony.
Smartt Bell's tone is that of a skeptical interrogator and conspiracy theorist. The problem with his skepticism is that he seems to apply it only when it pertains to Toussaint's motivations. The conspiracy Smartt Bell seems to want to push is that Toussaint was a tool of the grand blancs and the 1791 rebellion was supposed to be a staged managed affair, to undermine the jacobin petit blancs, that went horribly awry. Ok, let me get this straight, the big white planters and their managers would conspire with a black man to initiate a slave rebellion, something that all the propertied classes and castes where in mortal fear of. I don't see how such an uprising, even if unsuccessful would have benefitted the grand blancs class, since it was their properties most likely to suffer. Toussaint's white co-conspirators were the Governor Blanchelande, Bayon De Libertat and the man in charge of the militia. Bell would have us believe that these men had so much faith in Toussaint's power to control this phony uprising that they didn't take any measures to bring the business to an end to their satisfaction. Mr. Libertat was so confident that he didn't bother to take his family out of the danger zone. Are you having trouble buying this scenario? I couldn't. Smartt Bell tries to make a case for a commonality of interest between Blanchelande the governor, Mr. Libertat the plantation manager and Toussaint the free black property owner, I don't buy it because both military and civilian authorities in the colony were at odds with the planter classes because their job was to restrict the planters from trading in the open market. Smartt Bell seems to confuse Toussaint the historical figure with the Toussaint of his imaginings. Smartt Bell had trouble taking Toussaint's Catholicism at face value and proceeded to give us his "vodou" interpretation of the man's actions based on the well known "fact" that all "Haitians" who profess Christianity are really secret "vodou" worshipers. Had I known that when I was young I would have told my parents and their friends to drop the pretense. Smartt Bell seems to be blissfully ignorant of the history of the Catholic church in Africa. The Kongo court was converted to Christianity more than 250 years prior to Toussaint's birth and Afonso Mvemba a Nzinga made the Catholic church the official church of his kingdom in 1506, 237 years prior to Toussaint's birth. Wikipedia has a very good article on the Kongo and Christianity: [...]. Smartt Bell's book is the product of a lazy and amateurish writer who cared so little about his subject that he didn't bother to do the in depth research called for to find out the real relationship between Christianity and Africans. The only thing I have to say to anyone who took this book seriously is get real! The editors were just as lazy as the author, I found a typo on every other page. Kindle should demand better of the publisher. I don't appreciate spending over $10 for that kind of carelessness.
I did not finish this book because the writing did not hold my interest, however it obviously contains an excellent amount of information about the man and times. I did not know the French had a work them till they die system of slavery, far worse than anywhere in the US. Nor did I know the slaves who revolted were actually born free Africans, so the Haitian revolt was not so much a successful slave rebellion but a rebellion of kidnap victims.The down side is that this reads like a college thesis.
I first read Bell's historical fiction trilogy of Haiti, and had mixed feelings about the historical accuracy of those books. For the most part, I feel that they were quite a good representation of the slave revolt that freed Haiti from slavery.In this book, I feel that Bell reaches further and works to turn over the stones in order to find the real answers to the questions he is asking about Louverture's life. Unfortunately, much of those answers will never be found, and so all that remains is speculation. There is a large amount of historical data available to Bell, but many of those sources either skirt the real issues of Louverture's intentions and loyalties, or outright contradict each other. That being said, I think that Bell did an excellent job of presenting a readable and engaging historical biography of the Haitian hero. He was not a perfect man, but as Bell carefully pointed out, is either framed as a nearly divine savior, or as a scoundrel. Bell is seeking to balance the currently available sources and provide more balance.Overall, I generously endow Bell with kudos for his noble effort at historical integrity and for his ability to engage the audience.
Informative but so much minutia! Possibly students of military and diplomatic maneuvers will love this book. By the end of the book, I had confused many of the players.
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