What would the island of Hispaniola look like if viewed as a loosely connected system? That is the question Haitian-Dominican Counterpoint seeks to answer as it surveys the insular space shared by Haiti and the Dominican Republic throughout their parallel histories. For beneath the familiar tale of hostilities, the systemic perspective reveals a lesser-known, "unitarian" narrative of interdependencies and reciprocal influences shaping each country"sidentity. In view of the sociocultural and economic linkages connecting thetwo countries, their relations would have to resemble not so much acockfight (the conventional metaphor) as a serial and polyrhythmic counterpoint.