Aid State
Elite Panic, Disaster Capitalism, and the Battle to Control Haiti
Will be published approx. on 19. January 2026
Book
Paperback/Softback
400 pages
978-1-250-40596-8 (ISBN)
Description
Haiti is a nation near-collapse: criminal gangs have overrun the country, nearly all government officials have fled after the 2021 assassination of President Moise, refugees desperately set out on boats to reach the United States and Latin America, and the economy reels from the cascading after-effects of natural disasters that destroyed much of Haiti's infrastructure.
How did this happen? How did a nation founded on liberation - a people that revolted against their colonizers and enslavers - come to such ruin?
In Aid State, journalist and Haiti expert Jake Johnston reveals how longstanding United States and European capitalist goals ensnared and re-enslaved Haiti under the guise of helping it. To the global West, Haiti is and always has been "open for business": a place where labor is cheap, politicians are compliant, and profits are to be made. Over the course of nearly 100 years, the United States has sought to control Haiti and its people with occupying police, military, and 'peacekeeping' forces, as well as hand-picked leaders, meant to quell uprisings and protect corporate interests. Earthquakes and hurricanes only further devastated a nation left helpless by the aid industrial complex.
Based on years of on-the-ground reporting in Haiti, Jake Johnston's Aid State is a compelling, conscience searing book of witness.
How did this happen? How did a nation founded on liberation - a people that revolted against their colonizers and enslavers - come to such ruin?
In Aid State, journalist and Haiti expert Jake Johnston reveals how longstanding United States and European capitalist goals ensnared and re-enslaved Haiti under the guise of helping it. To the global West, Haiti is and always has been "open for business": a place where labor is cheap, politicians are compliant, and profits are to be made. Over the course of nearly 100 years, the United States has sought to control Haiti and its people with occupying police, military, and 'peacekeeping' forces, as well as hand-picked leaders, meant to quell uprisings and protect corporate interests. Earthquakes and hurricanes only further devastated a nation left helpless by the aid industrial complex.
Based on years of on-the-ground reporting in Haiti, Jake Johnston's Aid State is a compelling, conscience searing book of witness.
More details
Language
English
Place of publication
New York
United States
Publishing group
St Martin's Press
Dimensions
Height: 210 mm
Width: 137 mm
Thickness: 26 mm
Weight
414 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-250-40596-8 (9781250405968)
DOI
9781250405968
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Schweitzer Classification
Person
JAKE JOHNSTON is Senior Research Associate at the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C. and has been the leading writer for the center's Haiti: Relief and Reconstruction Watch website since February 2010, just weeks after a 7.0 earthquake devastated Haiti. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Nation, ABC News, Boston Review, Truthout, and The Intercept, and elsewhere. He grew up in Portland, Maine and lives in Washington, D.C.