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Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea

Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea

Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea

Merchant Seamen, Pirates and the Anglo-American Maritime World, 1700–1750
Marcus Rediker, University of Pittsburgh
April 1989
Available
Paperback
9780521379830
£27.00
GBP
Paperback
GBP
Hardback

    Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea focuses upon the seamen's experience in order to illuminate larger historical issues such as the rise of capitalism, the genesis of free wage labor, and the growth of an international working class. These epic themes were intimately bound up with the everyday hopes and fears of the common men who toiled upon the deep.

    Reviews & endorsements

    'In this important book, Marcus Rediker imbeds rich empirical research within an impressive theoretical framework. The result is a fresh and powerful analysis of the eighteenth-century maritime world that will quickly establish the author as a leading scholar in Anglo-American labor history.' Gary Nash, University of California, Los Angeles

    'Marcus Rediker's in-depth study of seamen in the early eighteenth century tells us a great deal not only about the shipping industry but also about the rise of capitalist relations in general in England, for which the industry may have been a more important forcing house than has previously been realised. No one interested in the history of the eighteenth century can afford to ignore this book.' Christopher Hill

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    Product details

    November 1987
    Hardback
    9780521303422
    340 pages
    235 × 160 × 31 mm
    0.635kg
    17 b/w illus. 1 map 8 tables
    Available

    Table of Contents

    • List of illustrations
    • Acknowledgments
    • Abbreviations
    • Introduction
    • 1. The seaman as man of the world: a tour of the North Atlantic, c. 1740
    • 2. The seaman as collective worker: the labor process at sea
    • 3. The seaman as wage laborer: the search for ready money
    • 4. The seaman as plain dealer: language and culture at sea
    • 5. The seaman as the 'spirit of rebellion': authority, violence, and labor discipline
    • 6. The seaman as pirate: plunder and social banditry at sea
    • Conclusion: the seaman as worker of the world
    • Appendices
    • Index.
      Author
    • Marcus Rediker , University of Pittsburgh