Michael Deibert’s With the Pen in One Hand and the Sword in the Other is a sweeping history of Haiti’s first century, examining its complex internal political dynamics, the vital role the nation played in liberation movements throughout the Americas, and its tangled relations with the United States. Weaving the diverse stories of the region into a vibrant tapestry of shared struggle under the shadow of both colonial European powers and an ever-more-assertive United States, Deibert...

A searing investigation of the factors that devastated Puerto Rico in the wake of Hurricane Maria, from acclaimed investigative reporter Michael Deibert.When Hurricane Maria roared across Puerto Rico in September 2017, it devastated the island. It was an unprecedented natural disaster, a Category 5 major hurricane, and ultimately responsible for the deaths of more than 3,000 people. It also ripped away the facade that had dominated discussions of the island's relat...

The world's first independent black republic, Haiti was forged in the fire of history's only successful slave revolution. Yet more than two hundred years later, the full promise of that revolution – a free country and a free people – remains unfulfilled.Home for more than a decade to one of the world's largest UN peacekeeping forces, Haiti's tumultuous political culture – buffeted by coups and armed political partisans – combined with economic inequality and environmental degradati...

Over the past two decades, the Democratic Republic of Congo has been at the centre of the deadliest series of conflicts since the Second World War, and now hosts the largest United Nations peacekeeping mission in the world. In this compelling book, acclaimed journalist Michael Deibert paints a picture of a nation in flux, inching towards peace but at the same time solidifying into another era of authoritarian rule under its enigmatic president, Joseph Kabila.Featuring a wealth of f...

Notes from the Last Testament, by veteran reporter Michael Deibert, is a riveting narrative account of the events leading up to and including the overthrow of Haitian President Jean-Bertrand Aristide. A fearless correspondent and a meticulous researcher, Deibert traces the rupturing of the social-democratic coalition that originally brought Aristide to power and that had been the fruit of years of opposition to the dictatorships and military juntas. From chaotic scenes of frenzied mayhem o...

A “meticulously researched and comprehensive” (Financial Times) history of the devastating war in the heart of Africa’s CongoAt the heart of Africa is the Congo, a country the size of western Europe. It borders nine other nations, and since 1996 it has been racked by a brutal war in which millions have died. In Dancing in the Glory of Monsters, renowned political activist and researcher Jason K. Stearns has written a compelling and deeply reported...

The Rwandan genocide sparked a horrific bloodbath that swept across sub-Saharan Africa, ultimately leading to the deaths of some four million people. In this extraordinary history of the recent wars in Central Africa, Gerard Prunier offers a gripping account of how one grisly episode laid the groundwork for a sweeping and disastrous upheaval. Prunier vividly describes the grisly aftermath of the Rwandan genocide, when some two million refugees--a third of Rwanda's population--fled to e...

A New York Times Notable Book of the YearA passionate and insightful account by a leading historian of Haiti that traces the sources of the country's devastating present back to its turbulent and traumatic history.Even before the devastating 2010 earthquake, Haiti was known as a benighted place of poverty and corruption, blamed by many for its own wretchedness. But as acclaimed historian Laurent Dubois demonstrates, Haiti's trouble...

Each week the oil and gas fields of sub-Saharan Africa produce well over a billion dollars' worth of oil, an amount that far exceeds development aid to the entire African continent. Yet the rising tide of oil money is not promoting stability and development, but is instead causing violence, poverty, and stagnation. It is also generating vast corruption that reaches deep into American and European economies. In Poisoned Wells, Nicholas Shaxson exposes the root causes of this parado...

Former UN Secretary General Boutros Boutros-Ghali declared to author Robin Philpot that "the Rwandan Genocide was 100 percent American responsiblity." Yet a more official narrative would have it that horrible Hutu génocidaires planned and executed a satanic scheme to eliminate nearly one million Tutsis after the Rwandan presidential plane crashed in the heart of dark Africa on April 6, 1994. Where do these two contradictory narratives come from? Which is true? Robin Philpot's vast and meth...

Filip Reyntjens's book analyzes political governance in post-genocide Rwanda and focuses on the rise of the authoritarian Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF). In the aftermath of the 1994 Rwandan genocide, the RPF has employed various means - rigged elections, elimination of opposition parties and civil society, legislation outlawing dissenting opinions, and terrorism - to consolidate power and perpetuate its position as the nation's ruling party. Although many international observers have haile...

Th is book is one of the fi rst ever published on Haiti after the catastrophic Earthquake of January 12 2010. In Haiti:Th e Refoundation of a Nation we are introduced to the fruit of the authors long refl ection and diligent research on the nature of the Haitian state and its diffi cult evolution through more than two hundred years of history. In it, the author believes that Haitis errors began as far back as 1804, and therein lies the primary reason for its troubles. Th e state has unwitt...