Toussaint Louverture: A Biography is the story of an eighteenth-century free black man who became a Haitian revolutionary.
Madison Smartt Bell sloughs off the customary trend of demonizing Louverture, debunking conjecture to provide a fact-based portrait that is more mundane than the myths from the past.
With attention to detail and strong in-depth research the author has crafted an eminently readable book, but with the lack of verifiable information available, this is a bit of a dry read. That is not the author’s fault. Little is known about Louverture before he was 50.
There are no earth-shattering revelations here. The story that emerges in Bell’s biography actually reinforces the reason that previous authors have fabricated past books about this man.
This isn’t the kind of book that you want to rush to download or buy unless you love Haitian history or happen to be Toussaint Louverture afficiando.