Marcus Rediker (born 1951 in

Owensboro, Kentucky Owensboro is a home rule-class city in and the county seat of Daviess County, Kentucky, United States. It is the fourth-largest city in the state by population. Owensboro is located on U.S. Route 60 and Interstate 165 about southwest of Lou ...

) is an American professor, historian, writer, and activist for a variety of peace and social justice causes. He graduated with a B.A. from Virginia Commonwealth University in 1976 and attended the University of Pennsylvania for graduate study, earning an M.A. and Ph.D. in history. He taught at Georgetown University from 1982 to 1994, lived in Moscow for a year (1984-5), and is currently Distinguished Professor of Atlantic History of the Department of History at the

University of Pittsburgh The University of Pittsburgh (Pitt) is a public state-related research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. The university is composed of 17 undergraduate and graduate schools and colleges at its urban Pittsburgh campus, home to the universit ...

.University of Pittsburgh profile

Scholarship

Rediker has written several books on Atlantic social, labor, and maritime history. Informed by the Marxist critique of capitalism, they explore their respective subjects in systemic terms while emphasizing human class-consciousness and agency. In the introduction to ''Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea'', for example, he explains: Rediker's approach can yield surprising discoveries and perspectives—like the egalitarianism of some pirate crews. "Pirates used the precapitalist share system to apportion their take," he argues in ''Villains of All Nations'': His most recent scholarship has turned to the related topics of the transatlantic slave trade and slave uprisings.

Awards

Rediker has won a number of awards for his works such as the

George Washington Book Prize The George Washington Book Prize was instituted in 2005 and is awarded annually to the best book on the founding era of the United States; especially ones that have the potential to advance broad public understanding of American history. It is admi ...

(2008),

OAH "Oah" is a song by Belarusian-Norwegian singer–songwriter Alexander Rybak. It is the first single released from his second album '' No Boundaries''. It was released on 8 June 2010. Background Rybak wrote the song as an ode to one of his femal ...

Merle Curti Award The Merle Curti Award is awarded annually by the Organization of American Historians for the best book in American social and/or American intellectual history. It is named in honor of Merle Curti Merle Eugene Curti (September 15, 1897 – March ...

(2008),

National Endowment for the Humanities The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) is an independent federal agency of the U.S. government, established by thNational Foundation on the Arts and the Humanities Act of 1965(), dedicated to supporting research, education, preserv ...

Fellow (2005–2006), American Council of Learned Societies Fellow (2005–2006) Distinguished Lecturer, OAH (2002–08), International Labor History Book Prize (2001), OAH Merle Curti Social History Book Award (1988) and ASA John Hope Franklin Book Prize (1988)

Selected publications

*''Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea: Merchant Seamen, Pirates, and the Anglo-American Maritime World, 1700–1750'' (1987) *''Who Built America? Working People and the Nation’s Economy, Politics, Culture, and Society, Volume 1'' (1989) * with

Peter Linebaugh Peter Linebaugh is an American Marxist historian who specializes in British history, Irish history, labor history, and the history of the colonial Atlantic. He is a member of the Midnight Notes Collective. Early life Peter Linebaugh was born in ...

: ''The Many-Headed Hydra: Sailors, Slaves, Commoners, and the Hidden History of the Revolutionary Atlantic'' (2000) *''Villains of All Nations: Atlantic Pirates in the Golden Age'' (2004) * editor with Emma Christopher and Cassandra Pybus: ''Many Middle Passages: Forced Migration and the Making of the Modern World'' (2007) *''The Slave Ship: A Human History'' (2007) *''The Amistad Rebellion: An Atlantic Odyssey of Slavery and Freedom'' (2012) *''The Fearless Benjamin Lay: The Quaker Dwarf Who Became the First Revolutionary Abolitionist'' (2017) *'' Prophet Against Slavery'' (2022)

References

External links

Video of a talk entitled The Real Pirates Of The Caribbean by Marcus Rediker for Bristol Radical History Group

Interview with ReadySteadyBook

Audio lecture "Atlantic Pirates in the Golden Age" by Marcus Rediker

The Sea is Red: An Interview with Marcus Rediker Mute Magazine

Marcus Rediker Credentials
{{DEFAULTSORT:Rediker, Marcus Living people 1951 births 21st-century American historians 21st-century American male writers University of Pittsburgh faculty American male non-fiction writers