The stream of sad news from Haiti reminds us of its founding and ours.  I once heard Walter Berns remark that a great unwritten book was how the Haitian slave revolt and subsequent government influenced the case against emancipation.  This new book by Jeremy Popkin is probably not that work, but it may be a start.  A snide Wall Street Journal review nonetheless gives one an impression (not the least from the artwork) of the significance and tragic failure of that early republic.