The American, French and Haitian revolutions are usually remembered separately, with Haiti's the one most often left out. Bender's essay for this catalogue insists on treating them as one event that remade the Atlantic world. French assistance won American independence, the debt it created forced the calling of the Estates General, and the Declaration of the Rights of Man was drafted by men including a veteran of the American war who consulted Jefferson in Paris.

What binds the three, on this account, is the long imperial rivalry of Britain, France and Spain, and above all the Seven Years' War, the first conflict waged on every continent, whose costs sent governments looking to their colonies for revenue.

Haiti is the limit case. Its revolution turned on slavery and the color bar, and white reaction came fast: Jefferson foresaw a racial storm reaching Virginia, and the United States refused recognition until Lincoln granted it during the Civil War.