The Common Wind: Afro-American Currents in the Age of the Haitian Revolution

This innovative book of history comes with a history of its own: as a legendary PhD thesis shared for three decades among scholars but never published for a wider audience until now. Its innovation? Piecing together the vibrant lines of communication that existed among slaves and free blacks in the 18th-century Caribbean, not from the communication (mostly verbal) itself, but from the records of those who were threatened by it: the letters of planters and colonial governors, newspaper reports, and court records. Scott's story is not flashily told, and often, necessarily, has to stick to generalities, but once it reaches the twin revolutions of the age, the French and the Haitian, it catches fire with the excitement of discovery and till-now-unspoken knowledge, just as it did for those looking for freedom at the time.