Villains of All Nations - (Beacon Classics) by Marcus Rediker (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

A must-have hardcover edition of the watershed book on 18th-century pirates and the amazingly democratic and egalitarian communities they created

Part of the Beacon Classics series

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 how sailors emerged from deadly working conditions on merchant and naval ships, turned pirate, and created a starkly different reality aboard their own ships, electing their officers, dividing their booty equitably, and maintaining a multinational social order. The real lives of this motley crew --which included cross-dressing women, people of color, and the "outcasts of all nations"--are far more compelling than contemporary myth.

Review Quotes

Marcus Rediker knows pirates, and he knows how to tell a story. Villains of All Nations is a must read; don't wait for the movie! -Robin D. G. Kelley, author of Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination

About the Author

Marcus Rediker is Distinguished Professor of Atlantic History at the University of Pittsburgh. He is the author of several books including The Amistad Rebellion (Viking 2012) and The Many-Headed Hydra: Sailors, Slaves, Commoners, and the Hidden History of the Revolutionary Atlantic (Beacon 2000). He worked with David Lester and Paul Buhle to adapt his book The Fearless Benjamin Lay (2017) into Prophet Against Slavery: Benjamin Lay, a Graphic Novel (Beacon, 2021) and Villains of All Nations into Under the Banner of King Death: Pirates of the Atlantic, a Graphic Novel (Beacon 2023).