Awakening the Ashes - by Marlene L Daut (Paperback)

About the Book

"The Haitian Revolution was a powerful blow against colonialism and slavery, and as its thinkers and fighters blazed the path to universal freedom, they forced anticolonial, antislavery, and antiracist ideals into modern political grammar. The first state in the Americas to permanently abolish slavery, outlaw color prejudice, and forbid colonialism, Haitians established their nation in a hostile Atlantic World. Slavery was ubiquitous throughout the rest of the Americas and foreign nations, and empires repeatedly attacked Haitian sovereignty. Yet Haitian writers and politicians successfully defended their independence while planting the ideological roots of egalitarian statehood. In Awakening the Ashes, Marlene L. Daut situates famous and lesser-known eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Haitian revolutionaries, pamphleteers, and political thinkers within the global history of ideas, showing how their systems of knowledge and interpretation took center stage in the Age of Revolutions. While modern understandings of freedom and equality are often linked to the French Declaration of the Rights of Man or the US Declaration of Independence, Daut argues that the more immediate reference should be to what she calls the 1804 Principle that no human being should ever again be colonized or enslaved, an idea promulgated by the Haitians who, against all odds, upended French empire"--

Book Synopsis

The Haitian Revolution was a powerful blow against colonialism and slavery, and as its thinkers and fighters blazed the path to universal freedom, they forced anticolonial, antislavery, and antiracist ideals into modern political grammar. The first state in the Americas to permanently abolish slavery, outlaw color prejudice, and forbid colonialism, Haitians established their nation in a hostile Atlantic World. Slavery was ubiquitous throughout the rest of the Americas and foreign nations and empires repeatedly attacked Haitian sovereignty. Yet Haitian writers and politicians successfully defended their independence while planting the ideological roots of egalitarian statehood.

In Awakening the Ashes, Marlene L. Daut situates famous and lesser-known eighteenth- and nineteenth-century Haitian revolutionaries, pamphleteers, and political thinkers within the global history of ideas, showing how their systems of knowledge and interpretation took center stage in the Age of Revolutions. While modern understandings of freedom and equality are often linked to the French Declaration of the Rights of Man or the US Declaration of Independence, Daut argues that the more immediate reference should be to what she calls the 1804 Principle that no human being should ever again be colonized or enslaved, an idea promulgated by the Haitians who, against all odds, upended French empire.

Review Quotes

"Awakening the Ashes presents to readers unfamiliar with the extraordinarily rich tradition of Haitian critical historiography a text that demands rereading, clearly constituting an essential reference for scholars of the Haitian Revolution, postcolonial studies, and critical historiography more generally."--American Historical Review

"Awakening the Ashes will reside in a class of its own. . . . [A] splendidly researched, richly enlightening journey of early Haitian poetry, novels, newspapers, and political and historical writings that relocates Haiti at the center of nineteenth-century thought on liberty and equality." --H-Diplo

"A magisterial recounting of Haiti's intellectual history . . . . The book is the latest in Daut's constellation of works on the Caribbean intellectual tradition, and Daut is herself one of the most dynamic contemporary voices on Haiti."--Laurent Dubois, Los Angeles Review of Books

"Daut has distinguished herself as both a perceptive catalyst for new scholarly thought and an architect for epistemological frameworks. She courageously illustrates the deficit in historical thinking regarding the place of Haiti in Atlantic world intellectual thought. She, likewise, carefully and painstakingly introduces Haitian writers to rearrange ideas and guide readers to satisfying places of fresh understanding . . . . a splendidly researched, richly enlightening journey of early Haitian poetry, novels, newspapers, and political and historical writings that relocates Haiti at the center of nineteenth-century thought on liberty and equality."--H-Diplo

"Daut superbly captures how Haitians reflected on their self-created sovereignty amid endless French and American attempts to undermine and negate what the Haitians had so painfully achieved."--CHOICE

"Important and timely. . . . Awakening the Ashes is an overdue work of scholarship. In particular, Daut's inclusion of theoretical Atlantic World frameworks helps scholars of African American history expand their archival source bases. This book merits the attention of students, scholars, and general readers."--Journal of African American History

"In inspiring and remarkable fashion, Marlene L. Daut places her work in that esteemed lineage [of early Haitian writers] and insists on the importance of remembering not only the violence of the past but also the great thinkers and writers of nineteenth-century Haiti . . . [who] have shaped their own deeply complex ideas around race, culture, history, and politics. . . . [Daut] continues to at once honour that tradition and further it in the most impressive ways."--French Studies