In 1973 the Scarecrow Press (Washington, D.C.) published an appendix to Max Bissainthe’s Dictionnaire de bibliographic haïtienne (Washington, D.C, 1951); together they represent the best bibliography of works on Haiti and by Haitians. For the latter part of the period, Kraus International has published The Complete Haitiana, 1900–1980 (Millwood, N.Y., 1982), edited by Michel Laguerre. It is a disappointing volume; for some of its shortcomings, see L.-F. Hoffmann, ‘The incomplete Haitiana’, Caribbean Review, 12/2 (1983). Mention should also be made of Max Manigat, Haitiana, 1971–1975 (LaSalle, Que., 1980) and vol. 39 in the World Bibliographical Series, compiled by Frances Chambers, Haiti (Oxford and Santa Barbara, Calif, 1983).

James Leyburn’s classic, The Haitian People (1941; rev. ed. with forward by Sidney Mintz, New Haven, Conn., 1966) remains one of the best introductions to Haitian history and social structure, despite its occasional shortcomings. Leyburn failed to recognise the full significance of the urban middle class and of important economic and social distinctions among the rural population; in the historical sections he is sometimes a victim of what may be called the ‘mulatto legend’ of the Haitian past. A book by the Polish scholar, Tadeusz Lepkowski, has been translated into Spanish under the title Haití (Havana, 1968–9); the author deals, among other things, with the early history of Haiti, with Haitian historiography and with the development of agriculture. Robert Rotberg, Haiti: The Politics of Squalor (Boston, 1971) has useful sections on the Haitian economy of the period but is otherwise undistinguished.