We Dream Together

"Rooted in deep archival research, exhibiting a wonderful analytic and stylistic sensibility, and narrating a story that is largely overlooked, We Dream Together makes a signal contribution to Caribbean studies and the broader history of struggles for independence and emancipation in the Americas. This is the book that tells the story of the Dominican Republic's independence." - Laurent Dubois, author of Haiti: The Aftershocks of History

"Anne Eller’s pathbreaking study provides the first social history of the Restoration War, an uprising that ended the Spanish annexation of the Dominican Republic in 1865. In the first transnational study of the period, Eller highlights how Haitians and Dominicans found common cause in the struggle against racism and imperial aggression, and how the Dominican struggle against slavery and for sovereignty was a truly Caribbean affair." - Lauren Derby, coeditor of The Dominican Republic Reader

"In doing away with simplistic, jingoistic evaluations of relationships between and among Caribbean actors, Eller allows readers to better appreciate the relationship of the eventual Dominican overthrow of the Spanish annexation to Puerto Rican and Cuban struggles for independence from Spain. Highly recommended." - W. J. Nelson, Choice

"Anne Eller’s pathbreaking study provides the first social history of the Restoration War, moving purposefully away from elite accounts to explore what the Haitian and Domimnican people on the ground were thinking and feeling." - Gavin O'Toole, Latin American Review of Books

"Eller’s book is an important addition to the historiography on anti-colonial struggles. Her globalized perspective is insightful as it offers the reader a fresh way of looking at events in Hispaniola within the context of global competition for interests in the Caribbean." - Bekeh Utietiang, Journal of Global South Studies

"For those of us descended from the island that is now Haiti and the Dominican Republic, We Dream Together offers historical lessons that should encourage a reconfiguration of identity that centers the social, economic, and political relationships forged between oppressed communities on both sides of the island’s internal border." - Sandy Placido, Black Perspectives

“With We Dream Together, Anne Eller has produced not only an invaluable contribution to the academic field of history, but also a forceful manifesto.” - Milagros Ricourt, American Historical Review

“Exhaustively researched and eloquently argued. We Dream Together is an important work for everyone interested in Haiti and the Dominican Republic to absorb and to ponder.” - Eric Paul Roorda, Hispanic American Historical Review

"A thorough, panoptic study of the sociopolitical dynamics at work in the Dominican Republic . . . . The strength of the scholarship is astounding." - Sophie Maríñez, H-Haiti, H-Net Reviews

"One of the greatest strengths of Eller’s book is precisely its demonstration of a connected history between two nations that have been, and perhaps continue to be, separated by history." - Marlene L. Daut, Reviews in American History

"Successful in dealing with the challenge of keeping all the various protagonists, political forces and international events in play along with foregrounding the everyday lives of inhabitants. . . . A welcome addition to an important new direction in the nineteenth-century Caribbean history. . . . She proves that a full understanding of the past is not possible without unearthing the sometimes surprising network of connections that underpin historical events." - J. Michael Dash, Slavery & Abolition

"Eller’s book not only provides an original and timely contribution to the island’s social history; it is also the first systematic description and analysis of the Spanish annexation as a crucial part of Caribbean history." - Michiel Baud, New West Indian Guide

"Anne Eller’s richly researched, intricately built book takes us to the 1844 to 1865 period during which Dominican independence was twice won, first against Haiti and then from Spain. . . . With a stereoscopic vision that encompasses both minute local details and the regional context, We Dream Together succeeds in raising the stature of the Dominican War of Restoration within the larger context of Caribbean post-emancipation struggles against racism and colonialism." - Samuel Martínez, European Review of Latin American and Caribbean Studies

"Eller’s book is an insightful and engaging examination of race, national identity, state formation, and agency in resistance to European imperialism." - Wayne H. Bowen, Itinerario