The Many-Headed Hydra: The Hidden History of the Revolutionary Atlantic - Softcover

Peter Linebaugh; Marcus Rediker

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1859844200 ISBN 13: 9781859844205

Publisher: Verso Books, 2002

Synopsis

"An extremely important and well written book" Times Literary Supplement "More than just a vivid illustration of the gains involved in thinking beyond the boundaries between nation-states. Here, in incendiary form, are essential elements for a people's history of our dynamic, transcultural present." Paul Gilroy, author of The Black Atlantic "The sections on piracy are perhaps the best parts in a generally splendid book. But even more seminal for historical research are the many vistas Linebaugh and Rediker open up in the history of blacks, women, the United Irishmen, the left in the American War of independence, and religious millenarianism. Strikingly, the authors write from the heart as well as the brain." Frank McLynn, author of Villa and Zapata "Scum of the maritime sort has their spell in the limelight with The Many-Headed Hydra. This compelling history of the 'revolutionary Atlantic' portrays pirates, sailors, dockers, sea-going whores and other dregs of the ocean and coast as briny rebels who resisted the global commercial order and even disrupted the slave trade for decades." Independent "The Many-Headed Hydra is a wonderful book. Its passion and commitment encourages its readers to think associatively, to make progressive connections." Guardian "Peter Linebaugh and Markus Rediker, militantly libertarian academics, have written, in what the call 'this black book of capitalism', an account of trans-Atlantic social change since the seventeenth century, from the viewpoint of the underdog ... The authors' egalitarian bias may stimulate as much acclamation as Das Kapital." Irish Times

About this title

Review:

Scum of the maritime sort had their spell in the limelight with The Many-Headed Hydra. This compellting history of the 'revolutionary Atlantic' portrays pirates, sailors, dockers, sea-going whores and other dregs of the ocean and coast as briny rebels who resisted the global commercial order and even disrupted the slave trade for decades. --Independent

The Many-Headed Hydra is a wonderful book. Its passion and commitment encourages its readers to think associatively, to make progressive connections. --Guardian

Peter Linebaugh and Marcus Rediker, militantly libertarian academics, have written, in what they call this 'black book of capitalism', an account of trans-Atlantic social change since the seventeenth century, from the viewpoint of the underdog...The authors' egalitarian bias may stimulate as much accumulation as Das Kapital. --Irish Times

Synopsis:

Long before the American Revolution and the Declaration of the Rights of Man, a motley crew of sailors, slaves, pirates, labourers, market women and indentured servants had ideas about freedom and equality that would forever change history. The Many-Headed Hydra recounts their stories in a sweeping history of the role of the dispossessed in the making of the modern world.

About this edition

• Publisher: Verso Books
• Publication date: 2002
• ISBN 10: 1859844200
• ISBN 13: 9781859844205
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 400