White, Ashli. Encountering Revolution: Haiti and the Making of the Early Republic. Baltimore, MD: John Hopkins University Press, 2012.

== Summary ==
This
book explores the far-reaching impact of the Haitian Revolution on the early
United States through American response to Saint-Dominguan refugees. These
refugees forced Americans – black and white, northern and southern, Federalist
and Democratic Republic, pro and antislavery - to confront the paradox of being
a slaveholding republic. She contends that “in the 1790s and early 1800s, no
event more clearly laid bare the contradiction between republican principles
and slavery than the Haitian Revolution.” (2) Moreover, these exiles raised
questions about being a republic – national character, migration policies,
philanthropy, political practice, and territorial expansion. In this regard,
the Haitian Revolution provoked some of the first articulations of U.S.
nationalism, as white Americans evoked the idea of U.S.’s version of
republicanism as exceptional. White presents a new
framework to understand the Atlantic World, early revolution and republicanism,
and the early republic. She presents a framework that bridges the “chain” and
“web.” While the American Revolution generated ties, it was more than just the
“chain” metaphor of exporting revolutionary ideas. As a result of the American
revolution, the British west indies became legally off limits and as a result
Saint Domingue filled the void, so much so that by the 1790s it ranked second
in volume and value of trade with the United States (web of the Atlantic
World). “The every growing traffic,” she argues, “fostered social,
intellectual, and cultural connections between the two regions’ residents,” and
the migration pattern in particular influenced not only Saint Domungues, but
also Americans and raised questions about American racism, asylum, and
democracy.
Example: The presence
of the Saint Dominguan refugee community tested the myth of the United States
as a philanthropic society committed to altruistic action on behalf of the
disenfranchised (widespread notion that Americans used to separate from their
British counterparts). While abolitionists supported enslaved refugees,
pro-slavery philanthropists were sympathetic to the slaver owners, who they saw
as being impacted by their displacement from social dominance.  In other words, race was the measure of
American philanthropy. White Saint Dominguans also argued that part of the
blame for the slave rebellion was philanthropy, as it promoted the abolition of
slavery. 
See also: Douglas Egerton, David Armitage, Woody Holton