Haiti and the United States: National Stereotypes and the Literary Imagination - Hardcover

J. Michael Dash

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0312016840 ISBN 13: 9780312016845

Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan, 1988

Synopsis

"Highly stimulating history of Haitian and US perceptions of each other as seen in each country's literature from 1850s-1990s. Dash sets these texts in political context and repeatedly demonstrates the narrow line between 'imaginative' and 'objective' descriptions of Haiti by US writers. This critical perspective, combined with the author's knowledge of 20th-century Haitian literature, makes this study a particularly valuable one"--Handbook of Latin American Studies, v. 58.http://www.loc.gov/hlas/

About this title

From the Back Cover

Imaginative literature, argues Michael Dash, does not merely reflect, but actively influences historical events. He demonstrates this by a close examination of the relations between Haiti and the United States through the imaginative literature of both countries. The West's mythification of Haiti is a strategy used to justify either ostracism or domination, a process traced here from the nineteenth-century until it emerges with a voyeuristic fierceness in the 1960s.

Review

'Dash's book is a sophisticated and fascinating critical study of the clash of cultures illuminating many of the political positions taken by each country at crucial stages of history.' - David Nicholls, Times Higher Education Supplement

About this edition

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Publication date: 1988
• ISBN 10: 0312016840
• ISBN 13: 9780312016845
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 152