Rating: 
Summary: Full of inaccuracies and lack of information
Review: This is not an easy book for an American to read. Page after page confronts us with the links between U.S. policies and the horrible suffering of poor Haitians, which continues to this day. It exposes the lies we have told ourselves to justify this treatment- demonizing Haitians who seek a more just international order (from the leaders of the Haitian revolution through the opposition to the U.S. occupation to the current pro-democracy movement), distorting or misrepresenting facts about Haiti, and so on.But a reader who disables his or her defense mechanisms will find a coherent explanation for Haiti's current misery, and clear directives for how we can help end it. But the book says almost as much about America as it does about Haiti: how we justify doing things abroad that we would never tolerate at home, with the willing collaboration of the press we trust to keep government honest. Uses of Haiti is a combination of emotion and academic rigor, which is unsettling to most readers used to one or the other. But the emotion (a normal and human response to 20 years of treating Haiti's sick), and rigor (the author is an MD and a PhD in anthropology)complement each other, if the coexistence is sometimes awkward.
Rating: 
Summary: Essential, if uncomfortable reading
Review: This is not an easy book for an American to read. Page after page confronts us with the links between U.S. policies and the horrible suffering of poor Haitians, which continues to this day. It exposes the lies we have told ourselves to justify this treatment- demonizing Haitians who seek a more just international order (from the leaders of the Haitian revolution through the opposition to the U.S. occupation to the current pro-democracy movement), distorting or misrepresenting facts about Haiti, and so on. But a reader who disables his or her defense mechanisms will find a coherent explanation for Haiti's current misery, and clear directives for how we can help end it. But the book says almost as much about America as it does about Haiti: how we justify doing things abroad that we would never tolerate at home, with the willing collaboration of the press we trust to keep government honest. Uses of Haiti is a combination of emotion and academic rigor, which is unsettling to most readers used to one or the other. But the emotion (a normal and human response to 20 years of treating Haiti's sick), and rigor (the author is an MD and a PhD in anthropology)complement each other, if the coexistence is sometimes awkward.
Rating: 
Summary: A way to evaluate Farmer's credibility
Review: Tracy Kidder's recent book Mountains Beyond Mountains was written entirely about Farmer and his life of unswerving, almost overwhelming devotion to the sick of Haiti in particular and of the third world in general. While Farmer comes across as a bit naive (while at the same time incredibly intelligent and quite cynical) or excessively saintly, the chance that he is simply a mouthpiece for Aristide who wants to line his own pockets seems to me to be less than zero.
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