Book excerpt: The disparities between the two republics, she notes, are all the more remarkable in that their experiences of anticolonial rebellion and nationhood converged in some striking ways. Despite the parallels, however, the varying cultural and racial identities of Haiti and the United States and the sociohistorical context in which those identities have been construed forced them to confront the challenges of slavery, republicanism, democracy, and economic development quite differently. Stressing the importance of domestic policy and the character of civil society in the formation of foreign policy, Plummer illuminates the various factors that figured in the relationship between the two countries throughout the nineteenth century.