This book is about the world in which the French general Marie-Louis Ferrand thrived and in which he ultimately lost his life. He can be seen as an overarching link between the four revolutions from 1775 to 1825 through which he lived. He was a pirate in the American Revolution, served as an officer in the army before and during the French Revolution, and volunteered to go to the French colony of Saint-Domingue (later Haiti) when Napoleon decided to retake control of that colony. When the rebelling slaves repulsed the French and proclaimed independence, Ferrand took command of the remaining French forces on the island and for five years held the eastern part for France. The last revolution he witnessed was the one staged against himself and the French regime in Santo Domingo.

One of Puerto Rico's leading historians, Fernando Pico has had tremendous influence over our currect understanding of Puerto Rican society. Here, he examines the ways in which developments in the courts and commercial centers of the Americas, Europe, and Africa have affected the common people, who have tried since the nineteenth century to take control of their political, social and economic lives. Pico expands his landmark 1986 book, Historia General, for this first updated American edition to include movements and events as recent as the fight for Vieques. This English edition has been updated and translated by the author.

Pico's text was originally published in Spanish in 1987, as one of several works written in the late-1990s marking the centennial of the Spanish-American-Cuban War of 1898 and its consequences for Puerto Rico. When the U.S. invaded Puerto Rico in 1898, the country was seriously divided by social conflicts; the invasion gave rise to violent expression of those preexisting conflicts. Pico examines the armed groups that terrorized the Puerto Rican countryside in 1898 and 1899, attacking first the farms and rural stores of Spaniards, and later those of native-born Puerto Ricans of European descent.

This book is about the world in which the French general Marie-Louis Ferrand thrived and in which he ultimately lost his life. He can be seen as an overarching link between the four revolutions from 1775 to 1825 through which he lived. He was a pirate in the American Revolution, served as an officer in the army before and during the French Revolution, and volunteered to go to the French colony of Saint-Domingue (later Haiti) when Napoleon decided to retake control of that colony. When the rebelling slaves repulsed the French and proclaimed independence, Ferrand took command of the remaining French forces on the island and for five years held the eastern part for France. The last revolution he witnessed was the one staged against himself and the French regime in Santo Domingo.

Fernando Pico is Puerto Rico's leading historian and author of over 20 books in Spanish and two translated into English.Less known is that he started his career as a columnist for the leading English-language newspaper in Puerto Rico, the ""San Juan Star"", from the early 1970s to the 1980s. At that time he was a freewheeling young grad student and later a professor, and the editor of the newspaper often cut out his more radical commentary. Thus, Pico had to resort to oblique satire.These essays deal with continuity and change in Puerto Rico, and constitute a delightful San Juan reader from a thoughtful historian's point of view. The themes range from Puerto Rican events observed from Paris, to politics encompassing the harassment of Puerto Rican dissenters in the early 1970's and the proliferation of referenda on the island, to lyrical descriptions of the disappearance of rural landscapes and cultural traditions. He describes bus riding etiquette and documents how neighborhoods were changing. He talks to older Puerto Ricans and records their descriptions and anecdotes, discovers old picture books and reflects on turning points in Puerto Rican history, ponders street names, and documents famous and forgotten prisoners and prisons. It is a unique window onto San Juan's wonderful cultural mosaic.