Why the Cocks Fight: Dominicans, Haitians, and the Struggle for Hispaniola

excellent thanks

East vs West---Or a real life Westside story. The author did a superb job enhancing the two countries history as well as explaining how one country relied on the other for goods and services....Her background warrants why she writes so well on such a niche subject, a minuscule island with two countries. Michele used the strength of the Cock, to represent the many. She enhances the metaphor of cockfights to allow us the reader to see how societies still love to show power over another, a Machiavellian style still alive today. The ring, is the battle field. Like the Romans, the cocks wage war against another civilization. She also brings to the top the city of New York--How three countries forge into one. A terrific book, on a topic I was very unfamiliar with.

Great book! Well-written and full of metaphore, this books describes even-handedly and captivatingly the sometimes-tenuous relationship between Haiti and the Dominican Republic as compared to two roosters in a cockfight. Book arrived quickly and is in good shape. Thank you for a great transaction!

In reading this book, I learned many more things that I have not known. The island with all of it inhabitants shares a rich and tortured history. There seem to be many uncovered facts in this book, such as the Dominican Republic actually obtained it's Independence from Haiti, that Haiti actually took the steps that eventually liberated the entire island. Though much of the time seems to have been spent in the Dominican Republic with many oblique references to Haiti, a fair amount of that time illuminating the perverse dislike each has for the other, in some ways the idea of blaming the party that for obvious reasons is unable to counteract the argument. For the most part this book illuminates much more of the history between the Haitians and the Dominicans, more and more about the immigration issues that seem to rear its erstwhile head in many places, and why folks seem to be driven to improve upon their personal life spaces. How some of these enclaves come to be, and remain that way. Little is discussed about Arristede and many of his predecessors, the wasting of the land itself and how it came to be that many Haitians would eventually choose to live in the Dominican Republic or the United States, or why Haiti is the most impoverished country in this hemisphere by far.

One of the best books about the relationship between Haiti and the DR-the author clearly knows her stuff and portrays the relationship in a balanced and engaging manner.

Excellent! Well written account of the "original sin" (slavery) and its consequences on those two countries with two cultures/two histories (Spanish and French/African) bound together by geography - one island. Unfortunately, these two peoples are bound in a never ending struggle to change the unchangeable - geography.I wonder if Bartolome de las Casas, the Spanish Catholic Priest who brought in the Africans to the Hispaniola as slaves to "save" the original inhabitants, the Tainos, anticipated the mess he created.