Smith writes the entangled histories of the eighteenth century's two richest sugar colonies after bondage ended in each: Haiti independent from 1804, Jamaica emancipated in 1838. This is not comparison in the strict sense. The two are handled separately at points and then sewn back together, on the argument that each remained present in how the other saw the world.

The connection predates 1804, with Saint-Domingue emigres such as the Espeut family arriving in Kingston with the people they held, and it thickened afterwards through refugees, exiles, labourers and others crossing between the islands.

What binds the two is a shared struggle over what freedom would mean once the plantation order broke down. Ruling classes on both sides fought vainly to hold that order together, majorities were shut out of politics, economies failed, fires and earthquakes compounded the strain. The book ends on divergence, with the American occupation of 1915 testing Haitian freedom again.