Marcus Rediker graduated with a B.A. from Virginia Commonwealth University in 1976. He then attended the University of Pennsylvania for his graduate school. There he earned an M.A. and a Ph. D. in history. Marcus Rediker has written several because like Who Built America? Working People and the Nation’s Economy, Politics, Culture, and Society, Volume 1 (1989) and The Slave Ship: A Human History (2007). Dr. Rediker has also done some editorial work and co-wrote a book with another author. Dr. Rediker had received several awards like the George Washington Book Prize (2008) or the National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow (2002-2008). Dr. Rediker has written many books about maritime involving such things as pirates, slaves, commoners, sailors …show more content…
The book discusses how pirates came to be, the fall of piracy, and how pirates lived. The book starts with the execution of a pirate named William Fly. The reason for his execution was cause of piracy, obviously, but what he says before he is executed really sets the tone for the book. In a summary Fly says that that ship captains should treat their sailors better with better wages and treatment. Chapter two goes into the experiences of the sailors aboard merchant and naval vessels. A lot of the unfair treatments that the sailors went through is discussed in this chapter and shows why they rose up to live a pirate’s life. Chapter three discusses the sailors that were treated unfairly deciding now to fight back. They would get other sailors to join their cause and take over vessels. They would also discuss the social backgrounds of many types of people that would join the pirates cause. Chapter four goes into detail about how the structure of a pirate ship would be created. From …show more content…
Rediker uses many different sources to account for what he is writing. Rediker has used many articles from newspapers from the 18th century, court documents, travel accounts, and many other things. Rediker created a great source of data and accounts to write this book. Many pirates were mentioned with accountability of where he got that information for so many individual pirates.
There are two problems in the book and one would be the times. Rediker focuses on the golden age of pirates but what about before the golden age? He does not go into detail about the early pirates. The pirates from the 1620s or 30s, what about their social structures and history? More detail about pirates from these times could bring a better understanding of the pirates we see in the golden age. The second issue is that Rediker only mentions anglocentric pirates with no mention of pirates from other nations. Rediker only mentioning anglocentric pirates and a great amount of his sources comes from them as well. With Rediker only selecting that source of information, you have to question is he really grasping all the information about pirates in the golden