The Haitian Revolution was the largest successful slave revolt in history, and Laurent Dubois reconstructs how enslaved people transformed a French sugar colony into an independent Black nation. Between 1791 and 1804, enslaved Africans and their descendants in Saint-Domingue rose against their masters, defeated the armies of France, Spain, and Britain, and established Haiti. Dubois, a professor of history at Duke, examines how the revolution grew from local uprisings into a movement that reshaped Atlantic history. The revolutionaries drew on African traditions, the French Revolution's rhetoric of rights, and the tactical genius of leaders like Toussaint Louverture and Jean-Jacques Dessalines. They fought not just for freedom but for a vision of society where slavery would be unthinkable. The book shows how the revolution terrified slaveholding societies throughout the Americas, contributing to the eventual abolition of slavery while also isolating Haiti from the international community. Dubois examines the revolution's internal conflicts, between field slaves and domestic servants, between African-born and Creole, between demands for land and demands for labor discipline. He traces how the new nation struggled to build institutions while defending itself against enemies who hoped it would fail. Readers interested in how enslaved people made history, in the Atlantic dimensions of revolutionary change, or in the origins of Haiti's subsequent struggles will find this vivid narrative essential.