Haitian heads of state are remembered, when remembered at all, as a long succession of failures and thieves. Destin finds that improbable across two centuries and more than fifty presidencies, and sets out to name what some of them built.

Seven are examined. Christophe raised the Citadelle Laferriere and Sans-Souci; Boyer joined the northern kingdom to the southern republic; Geffrard secured recognition from Lincoln's Washington and restored relations with Rome; Salomon founded the national bank and the postal service; Hyppolite introduced the telephone and the iron market at Port-au-Prince; Estime opened the civil service to Haitians rising out of the peasantry; Magloire oversaw the Peligre dam and the national stadium.

Each represents, in Destin's argument, a moment when the Haitian state functioned. That these achievements survive as footnotes, or as popular songs and nicknames, is the pattern he wants readers to notice.