About this title: Villains of All Nations is a people's history of piracy--a history that emphasizes how common seamen who turned pirate built for themselves a multicultural, democratic and egalitarian society. This vivid social history of Atlantic piracy focuses on its colorful Golden Age, from 1716 to 1726, the age of the dreaded black flag, the Jolly Roger, as well as swashbuckling figures such as Edward Teach, better known, of course, as Blackbeard. These "outcasts of all nations" imagined--and succeeded in forging--a better world than they had found on the merchant and naval ships on which they had ...
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Description: Good. Former Library book. Shows some signs of wear, and may have some markings on the inside. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Description: Very Good. Great condition for a used book! Minimal wear. Shipped to over one million happy customers. Your purchase benefits world literacy! read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Beacon Press
Date Published: 2004-06-15
ISBN-13:9780807050248ISBN:0807050245
Description: Good. Tight, bright, pages clear and bright, shelf and edge wear, corners bumped, an ex-library book with usual library markings and a mylar cover with the top layer removed leaving the underlayment beneath the dust jacket, ships in a box, delivery confirmation on U.S. orders. read more
Description: Fine. 0807050245 Very Gently Used Hardcover ~ Slightest shelf-wear slightly sun-faded cover ~ PRISTINE text ~ all books carefully examined & well packaged. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Verso
Date Published: 2004
ISBN-13:9781844670086ISBN:1844670082
Description: Very good in very good dust jacket. clean text, tight binding, minor shelf wear, bent corners, nice reading copy, help support indpendent booksellers! Sewn binding. Cloth over boards. 208 p. Audience: General/trade. read more
Binding: Hardcover
Publisher: Beacon Press
Date Published: 2004-06-15
ISBN-13:9780807050248ISBN:0807050245
Description: Very Good. ***WITHDRAWN LIBRARY COPY** * with customary stamps and stickers; No markings in text; Being sold on consignment for the library. Choose your shipping option based on the time you are able to wait for delivery. read more
""...damn ye, you are a sneaking puppy, and so are all those who will submit to be governed by Laws which rich Men have made for their own Security, for the cowardly Whelps have not the Copurage otherwise to defend what they get by their knavery; but damn ye altogether: Damn them for a Pack of crafty Rascals, and you, who serve them, for a Parcel of hen-hearted Numskuls. They villify us, the Scroundrels do, when there is only this Difference, they rob the Poor under the Cover of Law, forsooth, and we plunder the Rich under the Protection of our own Courage."
Charles Bellamy, pirate captain.
That pretty much sums up the tack taken by Rediker in this history of the "Golden Age of Piracy"--roughly 1716-1726.
When the colonial countries ended their wars and the divisions of the New World were pretty much made, the colonial powers dismissed their privateers--pirates employed by the crown or state to harrow their enemies--as they realized that it didn't pay to hamper anyone's theft of New World resources or the Middle Passage supplying slaves.
Yet the wretched conditions of most sailors in service to the new merchant class and their exploitation would drive hundreds and maybe thousands to mutiny or defect and sail under the Black Flag.
Rediker divides this Golden Age into three brief eras:
1) Rebellion and establishment of near anarchic groups under the pirate flag.
2) The flourishing of piracy.
3) Brutal repression and the desperate fight for survival by pirates as the violence ratcheted up.
There's a lot to admire in this book as it lays out the cruelties of the crown and states without glossing over the acts of pirates. Despite the lefty jargon about dialectics and what-not, the read is also fun.
Anyone who has ever thought of pirates as cool because they were rebel outlaws will like this book and the rest of you will at least get a brief history lesson."
"After reading The Many-headed Hydra co-authored by Peter Linebaugh, I picked this book up. Although Rediker follows the same theme as that previous work, the tone of Villains of All Nations is more academic and less overtly political. That's not to say that Rediker does not continue the materialist theme developed in The Many-Headed Hydra, which is that piracy of the 17th & 18th Century was both encouraged by and a reaction against the political and social policies of the Great Powers.
The book develops a number of ideas. First, pirates were largely proletariat, reacting to perceived injustices committed against them by the Crown and the merchant class. Piracy represented an escape from bondage (both from poverty and impressment) as well as a means of creating a new egalitarian social order. Pirate society was participatory; their articles had codes for limiting the power of their captains, an equitable system for sharing loot, and even a form of disability insurance. In this, as well as in their decisions to plunder or pass on captured merchant ships, pirates perceived themselves as following a particular (albeit contrary to the larger society) moral code. This moral code has its origin in what pirates consider to be just relations between a merchant captain and crew, but also extends into other realms of just social relations. Rediker devotes a chapter on Anne Read and Mary Bonny to build a modest case for their feminist influence on the larger culture (although he concedes that Victorian attitudes towards femininity during the 19th Century reversed any progress made).
Far more interesting is the various interests aligned against piracy. From encouraging piracy during the Queen Anne's War (War of Spanish Succession), England devoted more of its resources to expunging pirates to the degree that it interfered with emerging trade interests (by "trade interests" I mean exploitation of natural and human resources). As sugar, slaves, and flour in turn became hot commodities, the war against pirates - who represented the greatest resistance to capital - intensified, until 1726 when piracy was effectively exterminated.
This is a great alternative to the Hollywood stereotypes about pirates. Viewed within the larger (and typically cruel) social context, this book serves to humanize those who have historically been demonized, presenting them as sympathetic figures without reducing them to the comical, like more recent films have done. Maybe someday soon the Somali "pirates" will get a similar treatment."
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