Certain years are pivotal in global history, and one such year was 1959, from which this book takes its title. 1959 was indeed an historic year during which, among other historic events, Fidel Castro's guerrilla war in Cuba toppled dictator Fulgencio Batista. The geopolitical ripple effects were to be felt for generations-no more so than in Cuba's Caribbean neighbor Haiti. Those caught by surprise included Haiti's enigmatic strongman, Francois (Papa Doc) Duvalier, who was caught in the middle between Castro's Communist Cuba and the bloody right-wing dictatorship of Rafael Trujillo in Haiti's next-door island neighbor, the Dominican Republic.

This intriguing book, the third in a series drawn from the pages of the author's English-language weekly newspaper, the Haiti Sun, and from his notebooks, provides a journalist's firsthand look at Papa Doc's reaction-at first easing, then tightening even more brutally-his tyrannical rule. Diederich then traces the ensuing impacts on Haiti's relations with the U.S., other Caribbean nations, the rest of the Western Hemisphere, and the international community.

Thus for anyone interested in how the happenings of a single year in the annals of history can exert myriad-and unforeseen-impacts on the human condition, this book is essential reading.