Geggus's studies of the Haitian Revolution begin by reconstructing the society that produced it. On the eve of 1789 Saint Domingue held some eight thousand estates and accounted for something near two-fifths of all French trade abroad, with a population of about 500,000 slaves, 40,000 whites and 30,000 free people of colour.

Each of those groups, he shows, was split from within. Planters quarrelled with merchants and with the turbulent petits blancs; the gens de couleur ranged from newly freed Africans to educated landowners, bound together only by legal disability; the enslaved majority was divided by birthplace, language and rank, with Kongolese the largest African contingent. By comparative standards, he notes, the colony's slaves rebelled remarkably little.

A further study surveys where the evidence lies: French and colonial archives, published inquiries such as the Débats of 1792–94, and the personal records generated when insurgents went into exile.