The Return of Benjamin Lay
Play written by Naomi Wallace and Marcus Rediker
The Return of Benjamin Lay sweeps across the centuries in a bold exploration of an utterly impossible man. The play opened at the Finborough Theatre, London, in June 2023. Purchase on Amazon | Read More
Freedom Ship
The Uncharted History of Escaping Slavery by Sea
A definitive, sweeping account of the Underground Railroad’s long-overlooked maritime origins. Deeply researched and grippingly told, Freedom Ship offers a groundbreaking new look into the secret world of stowaways and the vessels that carried them to freedom across the North and into Canada. Purchase | Read More
Revolution by Fire
New York's Afro-Irish Uprising of 1741, a Graphic Novel by by David Lester, Marcus Rediker, and Paul Buhle
Based on the little known real life “Slave Insurrection” of 1741, this book imagines outlaw fugitive John Gwin and an eclectic crew of renegades as they attempt to disrupt and overthrow the colonial social order. Purchase | Read More
Under the Banner of King Death
Pirates of the Atlantic, A Graphic Novel, by David Lester and Marcus Rediker, with Paul Buhle
A tale of mutiny, bloody battle, and social revolution, Under the Banner of King Death novelizes for the first time the real pirates, an itinerant community of outsiders, behind our legends. Purchase | Read More
A Global History of Runaways
Workers, Mobility, and Capitalism ed. by Marcus Rediker, Titas Chakraborty, and Matthias van Rossum
Prophet Against Slavery
Benjamin Lay, a Graphic Novel by David Lester, Marcus Rediker and Paul Buhle
The Fearless Benjamin Lay
The Quaker dwarf who became the first revolutionary abolitionist
The little-known story of an eighteenth-century Quaker dwarf who fiercely attacked slavery and imagined a new, more humane way of life. Purchase | Read More
Outlaws of the Atlantic
Sailors, Pirates, and Motley Crew in the Age of Sail
This maritime history “from below” exposes the history-making power of common sailors, slaves, pirates, and other outlaws at sea in the era of the tall ship. Purchase | Read More
The Amistad Rebellion
An Atlantic Odyssey of Slavery and Rebellion
On June 28, 1839, the Spanish slave schooner Amistad set sail from Havana on a routine delivery of human cargo. On a moonless night, after four days at sea, the captive Africans rose up, killed the captain, and seized control of the ship. Purchase | Read More
The Slave Ship
A Human History
In The Slave Ship, award-winning historian Marcus Rediker draws on thirty years of research in maritime archives to create an unprecedented history of these vessels and the human drama acted out on their rolling decks. Purchase | Read More
Villains of All Nations
Atlantic Pirates in the Golden Age
Villains of All Nations explores the “Golden Age” of Atlantic piracy and the infamous generation whose images underlie our modern, romanticized view of pirates. Purchase | Read More
The Many-Headed Hydra
Sailors, Slaves, Commoners, and the Hidden History of the Revolutionary Atlantic
Long before the American Revolution and the Declaration of the Rights of Man, a motley crew of sailors, slaves, pirates, laborers, market women, and indentured servants had ideas about freedom and equality that would forever change history. Purchase | Read More
Who Built America?
Working People and the Nation's History
This major revision of Who Built America?, the widely acclaimed history by the American Social History Project, surveys the nation’s past from the perspective of working men and women, examining the roles they have played in the making of modern America. Purchase | Read More
Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea
Merchant Seamen, Pirates, and the Anglo-American Maritime World, 1700–1750
This brilliant account of the maritime world of the eighteenth-century reconstructs in detail the social and cultural milieu of Anglo-American seafaring and piracy. Purchase | Read More
Many Middle Passages
Forced Migration and the Making of the Modern World
This groundbreaking book presents a global perspective on the history of forced migration over three centuries and illuminates the centrality of these vast movements of people in the making of the modern world. Purchase | Read More
Mutiny and Maritime Radicalism in the Age of Revolution
A Global Survey
This volume explores the transnational dimensions of mutiny and maritime radicalism during the great cycle of war and revolution that began in the mid-1750s and continued until the 1840s. Purchase | Read More