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Black Spartacus: The Epic Life of Toussaint Louverture

David A Bell The Guardian
A gripping biography of the leader of the slave revolt that led to Haiti’s independence, described as ‘the first black superhero of the modern age, the work under review promises to be the definitive study of the epocal revolutionary figure.

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Was Aaron Burr the Embryo Caesar?

Eric Foner London Review of Books
Little is known about the veracity of the so-called Burr Conspiracy, the alleged effort by Aaron Burr to split off the western territories to form a separate nation in the early 1800s. People, the book's author writes, clung to familiar stories; they ‘embraced different certainties’ regardless of new information and revelations. Burr was judged on what was viscerally believed in a politically divided United States, whose easy acceptance of felt truths resembles our own.

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The Captive Aliens Who Remain Our Shame

Annette Gordon-Reed New York Review of Books
The author argues that a key factor in unifying the fractious 13 colonies in opposition to British rule during the Revolution was the patriots' effort to link British oppression to extant colonial fears about insurrectionary slaves and homicidal Indians. America's founders were chief among those spreading tales of British agents inciting blacks and Indians to take up arms against the American rebellion, making racial prejudice a foundation stone of the new republic.

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Revolutions Without Borders - Review - Thomas Paine and Other Radicals

Gavin Jacobson The Guardian (UK)
A new book chronicles the travelers ignoring borders to spread ideas of liberty and equality, from the American revolution to the declaration of Haitian independence. "Without social media or even an international postal system," author Janet Polasky writes, "revolutionaries shared ideals of liberty and equality across entire continents." Decades before Marx, these internationalist radicals were soon betrayed by the very societies they helped build.

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