User:Stumax

Stuart Maxwell -- Managing Editor, TheLouvertureProject.org.

In December 2003, I was given six file boxes and several CD-ROMs worth of material that my late grandfather, Milton Beckerman, had collected about Toussaint Louverture and the Haitian Revolution. My grandfather's intention had been to write a book about this remarkable man, a task he had made considerable progress on by the time of his death. Without any particular experience as a historian, much less any connection to or knowledge of Haitian history beyond discussions about the topic with my grandfather, I agreed to finish the work he had begun.

It quickly became apparent that I had bitten off more than I could chew. Haitian history was fascinating, no doubt, but convoluted, dense, and not well-mapped. It seemed to me that at every turn I learned something that contradicted what I thought I knew. Pulling together the threads of this enormous tale was a herculean task, one which had exhausted many smarter and better scholars than myself. As I grappled with a way to wrap my brain around the enormous problem of understanding Haitian history, as I explored and rejected the notions of creating a novel, a popular history, a historical fiction, a play, a screenplay, an art book, a documentary... even a comic book!... I at last stumbled across the collaborative encyclopedia known as the Wikipedia, and I saw a light at the end of the tunnel.

I started developing the Louverture Project wiki in August of 2004, and expect to release it to the general public in January of 2005. It is my sincere hope that this wiki will become a useful resource to both the scholar and the casual visitor seeking to understand this too-neglected piece of history.

I urge you to visit the Community Portal page to learn more about the site, and to find out how you can contribute to building this resource. If you're at all confused by anything on the site, or if you have a suggestion on how to make The Louverture Project's wiki more useful, please leave me a message on my Talk Page.

Thanks for visiting, and enjoy your exploration of TheLouvertureProject.org.

--Stumax 18:29, 19 Jan 2005 (PST)

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I created a Furl account today to collect online articles listed in the Bibliography pages. The cool thing about Furl is that it saves a copy of the page when you create the bookmark, so if the original site ever goes down, a snapshot can be retrieved.

The Furl account can be viewed here, though there's nothing there that isn't already cataloged on this site.

TO DO: I created a personal account, but I may create a new account specifically for the Wiki, and share the account name and password with wiki admins. Furl snapshots are only visible to the person who created the bookmark. Eventually I'd like to replicate the snapshot function here at TLP, but in the meantime I don't want to be the only person who can retrieve a broken reference. --Stumax 19:42, 16 Sep 2004 (PDT)

User:Stumax

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