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66
/100
I Index Overall Rating
Readers
30/100Critics
74/100Scholars
94/100Author:
Sudhir Hazareesingh
Publisher:
Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Date:
September 1, 2020
Among the defining figures of the Age of Revolution, Toussaint Louverture is the most enigmatic. Though the Haitian revolutionaryâs image has multiplied across the globeâappearing on banknotes and in bronze, on T-shirts and in filmâthe only definitive portrait executed in his lifetime has been lost. A call to take Haitiâs founding father seriously on his own terms, and to honor his role in shaping the postcolonial world to come.
What The Reviewers Say
... a tour de force: by far the most complete, authoritative and persuasive biography of Toussaint that we are likely to have for a long time. It is not without its own very strong point of view, presenting Toussaint above all as a fierce and effective opponent of slavery. But it is at times an extraordinarily gripping read.
A difficult task indeed — which makes Sudhir Hazareesingh’s Black Spartacus all the more remarkable. The Oxford academic deftly tells the byzantine and fragmented history to paint perhaps the sharpest portrait yet of Louverture.
... expertly crafted.
British-Mauritian writer Sudhir Hazareesingh writes a mesmerizing biography of fellow creole Toussaint Louverture.
