Marina Sitrin

Selected Praise for Marin Sitrin's previous book Horizontalism: Voices of Popular Power in Argentina

'To read this book is to join the crucial conversation taking place within its pages: the inspiring, maddening, joyful cacophony of debate among movements building a genuinely new politics.' - Avi Lewis and Naomi Klein, co-creators of The Take

'This book on the many facets, phases and possibilities of the insurrections in Argentina since the economic implosion of December 2001 is riveting, moving, and profoundly important for who want to know what revolution in our time might look like.' - Rebecca Solnit, author of Savage Dreams and Hope in the Dark.

'The movements in Argentina have been among the most creative and inspirational in recent years. Marina Sitrin's collection allows us to learn from the activists themselves and continue the experiments in autonomy and democracy they have begun.'? - Michael Hardt, co-author of Empire

'This book is really excellent. It goes straight to the important issues and gets people to talk about them in their own words.' - John Holloway, author of Change the World Without Taking Power

'This is a book for anyone who wants to understand what it's really like to change society from below.' - Jeremy Brecher, author of Strike! And Globalization from Below

'Marin Sitrin should be commended for all the hard work that went into producing the book, a work of political love and compañerismo.' - Javier Auyero, author of Contentious Lives

'These are the voices of Argentina's grassroots activists, captured amidst the most important burst of democratic innovation the world has seen in the last decade. Listen, and learn how to make history from the bottom up!' - Marie Kennedy, co-editor of Radical Politics of Place in America, and Chris Tilly, co-author of Glass Ceilings and Bottomless Pits… (más)

Inside Haiti: US Policy and the Plight of a Nation was written by Paul Farmer, an anthropologist and physician long - associated with Harvard Medical School. Farmer has worked extensively on international projects on social justice and international health, and in 2009, he was named the United Nations Deputy Special Envoy to Haiti.

Inside Haiti is a political pamphlet on the history of Haiti and on US foreign policy towards that Caribbean nation. It was published in 1994, after the 1991 military coup that removed Haiti's first democratically elected president, Jean- Bertrand Aristide. Thus, it predates Aristide's 1994 (US - supported) return to power and his second presidency (2001- 2004). Although not up to date, this work nevertheless offers a valuable perspective on the roles of France, the US, and Haiti's wealthy elite in producing the ongoing plight of this desperately poor nation.

Farmer traces the problems of poverty, illiteracy, disease, political instability, and violence to the 19th century. When Haiti overthrew slavery and won its independence from France, the latter country demanded 150 million francs in "reparations" for its loss of "property", i.e., land and slaves (!) -- a debt that took Haiti over 120 years to pay. As criminal as France's long exploitation of Haiti arguably is, in Farmer's perspective, actions of the world community are hardly better. He is bitterly critical of US foreign policy towards Haiti throughout the 20th century, to which he attributes much of Haiti's current plight. Farmer's perspective is well- supported, although it is contested by others. (It is revealing that successive, conflicting edits of the Wikipedia article on Aristide have grown so contentious that the article has been frozen, pending resolution). For an updated perspective on Haiti by Farmer, with responses from other experts, see his article Who Removed Aristide? in the London Review of Books. Another relevant source is Randall Robinson's book "An Unbroken Agony."… (más)