Race, Reality, and Realpolitik

The year 2015 marked the centennial of the 1915 United States occupation of Haiti and Haiti’s resistance to that signal event in its history. This study surveys the issues of economics, race, and realpolitik embedded in the political economy of U.S. interactions with Haiti that resulted in occupation. It then interrogates what constitutes the “state” as it pertains to foreign policy, along with an inspection of who benefits from empire. This approach eschews tired dichotomies of whether or not t