Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea: Merchant Seamen, Pirates and the Anglo-American Maritime World, 1700-1750The common seaman and the pirate in the age of sail are romantic historical figures who occupy a special place in the popular culture of the modern age. And yet in many ways, these daring men remain little known to us. Like most other poor working people of the past, they left few first-hand accounts of their lives. But their lives are not beyond recovery. In this book, Marcus Rediker uses a huge array of historical sources (court records, diaries, travel accounts, and many others) to reconstruct the social cultural world of the Anglo-American seamen and pirates who sailed the seas in the first half of the eighteenth century. Rediker tours the sailor's North Atlantic, following seamen and their ships along the pulsing routes of trade and into rowdy port towns. He recreates life along the waterfront, where seafaring men from around the world crowded into the sailortown and its brothels, alehouses, street brawls, and city jail. His study explores the natural terror that inevitably shaped the existence of those who plied the forbidding oceans of the globe in small, brittle wooden vessels. It also treats the man-made terror--the harsh discipline, brutal floggings, and grisly hangings--that was a central fact of life at sea. Rediker surveys the commonplaces of the maritime world: the monotonous rounds of daily labor, the negotiations of wage contracts, and the bawdy singing, dancing, and tale telling that were a part of every voyage. He also analyzes the dramatic moments of the sailor's existence, as Jack Tar battled wind and water during a slashing storm, as he stood by his "brother tars" in a mutiny or a stike, and as he risked his neck by joining a band of outlaws beneath the Jolly Roger, the notorious pirate flag. Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea focuses upon the seaman's experience in order to illuminate larger historical issues such as the rise of capitalism, the genesis the free wage labor, and the growth of an international working class. These epic themes were intimately bound up with everyday hopes and fears of the common seamen. |
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Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea: Merchant Seamen, Pirates and the ... Marcus Rediker No preview available - 1987 |
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American Atlantic authority Barlow's Journal Boston British Seaman capital Captain Nathaniel Uring cargo Christopher Hill Christopher Lloyd Coast Colonial common crew Dampier Daniel Defoe Davis Deep Sea Sailors deep-sea Defoe desertion discipline E. P. Thompson early modern East India economy Edward Barlow England English Shipping Francis Rogers Gentleman's Progress George Government and Labor Ibid irreligion Jack Cremer Jack Tar James John labor power labor process Mariners maritime culture maritime labor MASS ADM master mate merchant captain merchant service Morris mutiny Ned Ward Piracy pirates Plebeian Culture Political port Pyrates Ramblin reprint London Richard Robert Royal African Company Royal Navy sail SC ADM seafaring seamen ship's Slave Trade Snelgrave Society Spotswood tars teenth century Thomas tion Trade and Dominion Travels of Captain Tryals Universal Dictionary vessels Vice-Admiralty Courts Virginia Voyages and Travels Ward West Indies William William Dampier Wooden World Woodes Rogers workers York