**Longlisted for the Mountbatten Maritime Media Awards 2022**A groundbreaking history of the Black Joke, the most famous member of the British Royal Navy's anti-slavery squadron, and the long fight to end the transatlantic slave trade.Initially a slaving vessel itself, the Black Joke was captured in 1827 and repurposed by the Royal Navy to catch its former compatriots. Over the next five years, the vessel liberated more en...

A groundbreaking history of the Black Joke, the most famous member of the British Royal Navy’s anti-slavery squadron, and the long fight to end the transatlantic slave trade.The most feared ship in Britain’s West Africa Squadron, His Majesty’s brig Black Joke was one of a handful of ships tasked with patrolling the western coast of Africa in an effort to end hundreds of years of global slave trading. Sailing after the spectacular fall of Napoleon ...

#1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the author of Killers of the Flower Moon, a page-turning story of shipwreck, survival, and savagery, culminating in a court martial that reveals a shocking truth. The powerful narrative reveals the deeper meaning of the events on The Wager, showing that it was not only the captain and crew who ended up on trial, but the very idea of empire.A Best Book of the Year: The New York Times, The Wal...

In a chilling exploration of a nearly forgotten chapter of history, Marcus Rediker delves into the dark depths of slave ships in the 18th century.In this widely praised history of an infamous institution, award-winning scholar Marcus Rediker shines a light into the darkest corners of the British and American slave ships of the eighteenth century. With meticulous detail, Rediker uncovers the harsh realities of the slave trade, shedding light on the inhumane treatmen...

In his first work of nonfiction, bestselling novelist James Webb tells the epic story of the Scots-Irish, a people whose lives and worldview were dictated by resistance, conflict, and struggle, and who, in turn, profoundly influenced the social, political, and cultural landscape of America from its beginnings through the present day.More than 27 million Americans today can trace their lineage to the Scots, whose bloodline was stained by centuries of continuous warfare along the bor...

In the summer of 1812 Britain stood alone, fighting for her very survival against a vast European Empire. Only the Royal Navy stood between Napoleon's legions and ultimate victory. In that dark hour America saw its chance to challenge British dominance: her troops invaded Canada and American frigates attacked British merchant shipping, the lifeblood of British defence.War polarised America. The south and west wanted land, the north wanted peace and trade. But America had to choose ...

Villains of All Nations explores the 'Golden Age' of Atlantic piracy (1716-1726) and the infamous generation whose images underlie our modern, romanticized view of pirates.Rediker introduces us to the dreaded black flag, the Jolly Roger; swashbuckling figures such as Edward Teach, better known as Blackbeard; and the unnamed, unlimbed pirate who was likely Robert Louis Stevenson's model for Long John Silver in Treasure Island.This history shows from the bottom up ho...

Dido Elizabeth Belle was born in 1761. It would be nearly 100 years before slavery was abolished. The date would be of little importance if not for one important factor: Belle's father was white, but her mother was African. It was an unthinkable act for the time, and Belle's life was destined for only bad things. But remarkably bad things did not happen.Belle was sent to live with her uncle, the Earl of Mansfield; here she was raised as a free woman and given the same privileged up...

Winner of the International Labor History AwardLong before the American Revolution and the Declaration of the Rights of Man, a motley crew of sailors, slaves, pirates, laborers, 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.When an unprecedented expansion of trade and colonization...

On a September day in 1813, as citizens watched from the rocky shore of Pemaquid, Maine, two of the last and bravest military sailing commanders engaged in a battle that would change the course of the War of 1812...Samuel Blyth was the youthful commander of His Britannic Majesty’s brig Boxer, and William Burrows, younger still, commanded the USS Enterprise. Both men valued honor above all, and on this day their commitment would be put to ...

The acclaimed naval historian sheds significant light on the Royal Navy's role in fighting the African slave trade through years of bitter battle at sea.On March 16th, 1807, the British Parliament passed The Abolition of the Slave Trade Act. The following year, the Royal Navy's West African Squadron was formed for the purpose of stopping and searching ships at sea suspected of carrying enslaved people. But with typical thoroughness, the Royal Navy took the fight to ...

"A lucid, fluent and fascinating account of the Zong. The book details the horror of the mass killing of enslaved Africans on board the ship in 1781."—Gad Heuman, co-editor of The Routledge History of SlaveryOn November 29, 1781, Captain Collingwood of the British ship Zong commanded his crew to throw overboard one-third of his cargo: a shipment of Africans bound for slavery in America. The captain believed his ship was off course, and he...