Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea: Merchant Seamen, Pirates and the Anglo-American Maritime World, 1700 1750

by Marcus Rediker

Book Overview

The 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,...

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0521303427
• ISBN13: 9780521303422
• Release Date: December 1987
• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Length: 340 Pages
• Weight: 1.48 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.0" x 9.0"

Customer Reviews

Sailing Socialism

Rediker is hardly the only man to notice - though he is one of only a very few to have written on the topic at length - that the Anglo-American Maritime world of the early to mid 18th Century was a socio-political hotbed of burgeoning revolution. To criticize the author for being a Marxist is absurd - the era about which he is writing, and the sailors and specific cultural events of that era, were socialist themselves, though they wouldn't have had the insight to realize it at the time.Political scientists and economists should find this book of even more interest than historians, as many of the same events in the rise of Capitalism as Rediker writes about are now coming full circle and repeating themselves, with NAFTA and GATT creating the same social conditions that led to widespread - and often remarkably effective (in the case of piracy) - rebellion between 1700 and 1750. As Rediker points out, our very word "strike," in its labor union connotation, originated with merchant mariners striking sail on their ships and halting the movement of their cargoes.Rediker is a remarkably thorough researcher, backing his thesis with the best possible sources and representing both the Capitalist and Labor points of view from contemporaneous documents. His masterful rendering of the world of "Jack Tar," an average mariner of the age, ably demonstrates that the social upheaval witnessed during the Golden Age of Piracy was an inevitability - as was its eventual downfall. Rediker is not a Marxist apologist, as his critics claim, but a keen and competent observer of statistical trends and social events, which he elucidates with extreme precision. He is less advancing any kind of argument, than simply putting the merchant marine world of three centuries ago into clear focus, and to some degree comparing and contrasting it with our modern landscape.This is a truly fascinating book, as much for its brilliantly vivid portraiture of the age as for the validity of its social and economic arguments. It would make an excellent textbook for political science, economics, or sociology classes.

A remarkable investigation on an original topic.

"Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea" constitutes a very serious study on a topic often covered just superficially by historians: the life, ways , customs and culture at sea in the Anglo - American Maritime World in the Eighteenth Century. The title itself suggests the wooden world of the ship, sailing through the ocean with its sailors trapped in the middle of the Devil, or the harsh conditions on board, and the Deep Blue Sea. The first part of the book provides the reader with a wide view of the port cities and trade routes where this maritime culture evolved. And starting from this geographical tour, the topic is narrowed down to the specific aspects and details regarding "Jack Tar", or the personification of an average sailor of those times. It is amazing to think of such a harsh world, very well portrayed by the autor, that was the heart of the English Commerce, and the cornerstone of the future British Empire. The conditions on board were so insane that only the stongest could survive. This reality, very accurately described by the autor, led to multiple mutinies that often ended up in piracy. The fact that English sailors died in similar proportion as slaves in the African Coast, is a true revelation for the reader. A remarkable fact dealing with piracy, that makes this book different from others, is that this investigation prooves that the pirates are the good guys of the story. These men of free spirit that broke away from the strict discipline on board, constituted a democratic but ruthless society, aside of the law, in their pirate ships and communities. Such form of democracy, based on principles of solidarity between the English poor, was one of the first examples of the fight for equality among men, before the French and American Revolutions.

A remarkable, true account of the lives of ancient seamen.

Markus Rediker explores the amazing way in which the harsh conditions surrounding seafaring in the Eighteenth Century built up a unique environment. The wooden world that constituted the deep sea sailor's reality is carefully detailed and well documented, which makes it very interesting and entertaining to read. Rediker reveals the reader what the real world was like, much different from the romantic idea of the sailor, built up by popular culture. He shows how seamen fought their lives caught "between the devil...", or the harsh conditions on board, and "the deep blue sea", that surrounded everything. He takes the reader in a fascinating trip to the most important port cities of the old Anglo-American Maritime World to experience how and where the personality, ideology, psychological and social characteristics of the deep sea sailor evolved. And, the most interestig feature of all, is how a group of brave and daring men decided to break away and declare a war where "no quarter wold be given" to that unfair reality to which they once belonged. Those rebels became the notorious pirates of the Golden Age of Piracy, who are undoubtedly the most fascinating seamen of the period. Rediker's comparison of the tyrannical conditions of the merchant service and the navy, on one hand, and the democratic principals that guided the Pirate Brotherhood, on the other, is a true revelation of this outstanding book.

Brilliant and Surprising

Rediker is, first of all, a wonderful writer - even if you've never read a about the early 1700s before, you'll be engrossed in what he has to say about the world of "Jack Tar". People who enjoy sea-faring fiction will also get a kick out of it; Rediker reveals a world of constant backbreaking work in a very dangerous environment, brutal punishments for the tiniest infraction, and of the strange brotherhood that forms among sailors. For me the biggest surprise was that the pirates are the good guys in the story - men who broke away from the tyrannical hierachy of ships, who formed a very specific set of moral rules based upon the traditions of the English poor, who shared the booty, who championed the weak and punished the strong. Kind of a Robin Hood thing, very interesting. Entertaining, compelling, informative.