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Marcus Rediker @marcusrediker.bsky.social · 30/09/2026

I am honored to say that my book *Freedom Ship* has been awarded the 2026 Marion Brewington Book Prize for Maritime History by the Maryland Center for History and Culture.

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Marcus Rediker @marcusrediker.bsky.social · 27/09/2026

Film screening at NYU on Monday, Sept. 28 at 7:00 pm: *Becoming Benjamin Lay* will be screened in the Espacio de Culturas auditorium, King Juan Carlos Center, 53 S. Washington Square. Please help us spread the word for this free event. Please register here: as.nyu.edu/research-cen...

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Reposted by Marcus Rediker

Beacon Press @beaconpress.bsky.social · 23/09/2026

THE BLACK SCHOONER transports us from the 1839 Amistad rebellion to the resulting trials in New Haven and an unexpected international victory for the abolitionist movement. Join @marcusrediker.bsky.social and David Lester for their event on September 30! buff.ly/uFsn0LF

buff.ly

Exploring the Jagged Edges of History: Graphic Novel 'The Black Schooner' Launch at New Haven Museum

'The Black Schooner' examines the 1839 Amistad Rebellion, from Sierra Leone to the New Haven Trials, and an unexpected abolitionist victory.

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Marcus Rediker @marcusrediker.bsky.social · 21/09/2026

Join us for the launch of our new book, *The Black Schooner: Rebellion on the Amistad, A Graphic Novel*, Wed., Sept. 30, 6:00 pm, at the New Haven Museum. I will be there in person and co-author David Lester will join remotely. The event is free. Register here: cthumanities.org/event/the-bl...

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Marcus Rediker @marcusrediker.bsky.social · 20/09/2026

Delighted to say, our film *Becoming Benjamin Lay* has won the 2026 “Audience Award,” Best Feature-Length Film in the ReelAbilities Film Festival Pittsburgh. www.instagram.com/p/DdebWiuDMKm/

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Marcus Rediker @marcusrediker.bsky.social · 19/09/2026

My blurb for Chloe Ireton’s new book, forthcoming from Hurst in November: “Chloe Ireton has brought to vivid life a love story in *Plotting for Freedom* and thereby made a unique, moving, deeply human, and sure to be lasting contribution to Atlantic history.” hurstpublishers.com/book/plottin...

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Marcus Rediker @marcusrediker.bsky.social · 18/09/2026

My blurb: “Graham Hodges has made a lifetime of major contributions to the study of American slavery and abolition. His biography of Henry Highland Garnet is a triumph -- a deeply-researched and altogether brilliant portrait.” yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300...

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Marcus Rediker @marcusrediker.bsky.social · 17/09/2026

Happy to say that my book *Freedom Ship* will be published in Italian as *Fugitives: The Secret Routes to Freedom* by Elèuthera Edizioni, based in Milan. This is the second translation to appear so far, the other in German, with a third coming in Spanish. www.eleuthera.it/scheda_libro...

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Reposted by Marcus Rediker

Beacon Press @beaconpress.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

🗣️ Mark your calendars, New Haven! The New Haven Museum is hosting @marcusrediker.bsky.social and David Lester’s launch for their graphic novel, THE BLACK SCHOONER, on September 30 at 4PM! The program is free and offered as a Connecticut Freedom Trail Month activity. buff.ly/p8TswDq

patch.com

Exploring the Jagged Edges of History: Graphic Novel 'The Black Schooner' Launch at New Haven Museum

'The Black Schooner' examines the 1839 Amistad Rebellion, from Sierra Leone to the New Haven Trials, and an unexpected abolitionist victory.

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Marcus Rediker @marcusrediker.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Honored that my book *Freedom Ship* has been named a finalist for this year's #Slaveryarchive Book Prize.

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Marcus Rediker @marcusrediker.bsky.social · 16/09/2026

Penn was a good place to study while I was there, from 1976-1982: Dell Hymes and William Labov (linguistics), Arjun Appadurai and Anthony Wallace (anthropology), and Erving Goffman (sociology). I learned the most from a historian of great and unruly brilliance, early Americanist Michael Zuckerman.

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Marcus Rediker @marcusrediker.bsky.social · 15/09/2026

When I arrived at Penn for graduate study 50 years ago, I had no idea what I was getting into. No one in my family had ever gone to college, much less grad school. As Malcom X said, you could have hung a placard around my neck that said “hick” and it couldn’t have been any more obvious.

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Marcus Rediker @marcusrediker.bsky.social · 14/09/2026

Fifty years ago this month I went to Penn for graduate study: Early American/Caribbean slavery with Richard S. Dunn. I began to study sailors and pirates and eventually wrote what would become my first book, *Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea* (1987). I returned to slavery in subsequent books.

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Marcus Rediker @marcusrediker.bsky.social · 13/09/2026

Many years ago, when I was in graduate student at Penn, the anthropologist Clifford Geertz invited me to come work with him as one-year fellow at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton. I was forced to decline, but I have always wondered what would have happened had I gone.

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Marcus Rediker @marcusrediker.bsky.social · 10/09/2026

Film screening in NYC: We will show *Becoming Benjamin Lay* at New York University on Monday, Sept. 28 at 7:00 pm in the Espacio de Culturas auditorium, King Juan Carlos Center, 53 S. Washington Square. The event is free but please register by the link below: www.eventbrite.com/e/becoming-b...

eventbrite.com

Becoming Benjamin Lay - Film Screening and Conversation with Marcus Rediker

Marcus Rediker (historian, playwright, and co-director/producer) will present the documentary film and participate in a Q&A.

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Marcus Rediker @marcusrediker.bsky.social · 08/09/2026

We will hold the launch of our graphic novel *The Black Schooner: Rebellion on the Amistad, A Graphic Novel* at the New Haven Museum on Wed., Sept. 30 at 6:00 pm. The event is free but registration is required. See the link below. Join us! zip06.com/news/918822/...

zip06.com

Graphic Novel Explores the Amistad Rebellion

A reception begins at 5 p.m., followed by the program at 6 p.m. The program is free and is offered as a Connecticut Freedom Trail Month activity. Registration is required.

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Marcus Rediker @marcusrediker.bsky.social · 07/09/2026

Thrilled to team up with vocalist Karen Somerville to present my book *Freedom Ship* through story and song at the Downrigging Festival in Chestertown, MD, Friday, Oct. 30. I loved working with Karen on a similar presentation of the *The Slave Ship* years ago. downrigging.org/event/americ...

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Marcus Rediker @marcusrediker.bsky.social · 03/09/2026

Grateful to the good people at City of Asylum (@cityofasylum.bsky.social) for the screening of *Becoming Benjamin Lay* Monday evening before a large and enthusiastic audience, in person and online. With film director Tony Buba and Darin Lee, Director of Public Programming at CoA.

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Marcus Rediker @marcusrediker.bsky.social · 02/09/2026

As many of you know, I am a collector of Haitian art. Here is a 1955 painting by a little-known artist named Roland Bigaud, who might have been related to the famous Wilson Bigaud. The luminous color used to depict a vodou ceremony is extraordinary.

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Marcus Rediker @marcusrediker.bsky.social · 01/09/2026

Honored that our film *Becoming Benjamin Lay* is an official selection of Pittsburgh’s ReelAbilities Film Festival. Anyone in PA, OH, and WV who would like to watch the film and at the same time support the festival, may screen it here between Sept. 4-13: reela26.eventive.org/films/6a7a2f...

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Marcus Rediker @marcusrediker.bsky.social · 31/08/2026

For the many of you who have expressed a desire to see our new documentary film, *Becoming Benjamin Lay*, here is an opportunity. Wherever you live, you can livestream tonight’s screening at @cityofasylum.bsky.social, 7:00 pm, through Vimeo. Sign up to do so here: cityofasylum.org/program/tony...

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Marcus Rediker @marcusrediker.bsky.social · 30/08/2026

Tomorrow evening, Monday, Aug. 31! Join Tony Buba and me for the screening of our film, *Becoming Benjamin Lay*, at @cityofasylum.bsky.social, 40 W. North Ave. on Pittsburgh’s Northside, 7:00 pm, in-person or remote. Please register for the free event here: cityofasylum.org/program/tony...

cityofasylum.org

Tony Buba & Marcus Rediker Present: "Becoming Benjamin Lay" - City of Asylum

City of Asylum hosts a film screening of a new documentary from director Tony Buba and historian Marcus Rediker, exploring the life and ideas of Benjamin Lay.

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Marcus Rediker @marcusrediker.bsky.social · 28/08/2026

My blurb for a terrific book coming in Jan. 2027: "... Christian Hogsbjerg places revolt by enslaved people at the center of a creative and inspiring Atlantic-wide freedom story, renewing and going beyond CLR James’s classic *History of Pan-African Revolt*." www.bloomsbury.com/us/atlantic-...

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Marcus Rediker @marcusrediker.bsky.social · 26/08/2026

Wanted to let everyone know that we are still working on a distribution plan that would allow people around the world to watch our new documentary film, *Becoming Benjamin Lay*. Meantime, we will screen the film here and there, Aug. 31 in Pittsburgh (City of Asylum) and Sept. 28 at NYU.

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Marcus Rediker @marcusrediker.bsky.social · 25/08/2026

Sad to learn of the death of my friend Ruth Hsu, who taught literature at the University of Hawai’i-Mānoa. Ruth was a lively presence in a course I taught at UH in 2019, “How to Write History from Below.” She was smart, learned, funny, kind, and gracious. I shall miss her very much. RIP.

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Marcus Rediker @marcusrediker.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

It was my great pleasure to see a spectacular performance of Shakespeare’s *The Tempest* last night at the Carrie Furnace Works, produced by Quantum Theatre. This brings to a close the illustrious career of Artistic Director Karla Boos, who founded Quantum in 1990. She went out in a blaze of glory!

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Marcus Rediker @marcusrediker.bsky.social · 24/08/2026

Next Monday, August. 31, 7:00 pm: Tony Buba and I will screen our film, *Becoming Benjamin Lay*, at City of Asylum (@cityofasylum.bsky.social). Join us! The event is free but registration is requested though the link below. cityofasylum.org/program/tony...

cityofasylum.org

Tony Buba & Marcus Rediker Present: "Becoming Benjamin Lay" - City of Asylum

City of Asylum hosts a film screening of a new documentary from director Tony Buba and historian Marcus Rediker, exploring the life and ideas of Benjamin Lay.

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Marcus Rediker @marcusrediker.bsky.social · 21/08/2026

Tremendously honored that my book *Freedom Ship* has been given a Josephine Miles Award by PEN Oakland, a writers group founded by Ishmael Reed and others in 1991, the “Blue Collar PEN,” according to the *New York Times*. Other winners this year include Walter Mosley and Boots Riley.

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Marcus Rediker @marcusrediker.bsky.social · 20/08/2026

Here is an interview I did about the body of my work with Thiago Gama for the Brazilian platform @outraspalavras.net. The title is “The Ship: The Factory before the Factory.” You can read it in either Portuguese or (with Google translate) English. outraspalavras.net/historia-e-m...

outraspalavras.net

Rediker: o navio, a fábrica antes da fábrica | Outras Palavras

Historiador mostra como os grandes barcos a vela europeus foram tecnologias essenciais para o capitalismo. E a organização coletiva de marinheiros contra Estados e o capital no século XVII, que levou ...

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Marcus Rediker @marcusrediker.bsky.social · 16/08/2026

Sad to hear of the passing of Sumit Sarkar, one of India’s greatest historians. It was an honor to meet him when I visited Kolkata and Delhi in 2008. He was a brilliant, gentle, altogether lovely man. The world is poorer today. frontline.thehindu.com/other/obitua...

frontline.thehindu.com

Sumit Sarkar: The Historian Who Changed Modern India

Historian Sumit Sarkar taught generations to question neat narratives, recover subaltern voices and connect class, caste and power in modern India.

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Marcus Rediker @marcusrediker.bsky.social · 13/08/2026

In my new book on “history from below,” I will discuss what I learned from my grandfather, a coal miner and a master storyteller, as he sat at the kitchen table, Lucky Strike cigarette in one hand, a cup of Maxwell House coffee in the other, spinning marvelous tales. He worked in Beech Creek, KY.

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Reposted by Marcus Rediker

MAAH Stone Book Award @maahstonebookaward.bsky.social · 09/08/2026

8/14 2026 MAAH Stone Book Award ShortList: Freedom Ship: The Uncharted History of Escaping Slavery by Sea Marcus Rediker @marcusrediker.bsky.social @penguinrandomhouse.bsky.social @vikingbooks.bsky.social

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Reposted by Marcus Rediker

Marcus Rediker @marcusrediker.bsky.social · 02/08/2026

For all you writers out there: a list of sixteen writing tips, culled from long experience of trying get unruly words down onto the page. Originally posted on social media, recently republished in the *Pittsburgh Review of Books (@pghreviewofbooks.bsky.social). pghrev.com/sixteen-writ...

pghrev.com

Sixteen Writing Tips from Marcus Rediker - Pittsburgh Review of Books

Editor's Note: Acclaimed writer and Distinguished Professor of Atlantic History at the University of Pittsburgh Marcus Rediker has long informally circulated

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Marcus Rediker @marcusrediker.bsky.social · 04/08/2026

Later this month — please mark your calendars! Tony Buba and I will screen our film, *Becoming Benjamin Lay* at the City of Asylum, 40 W North Ave., Pittsburgh on Monday, August 31 at 7:00 pm. Join us! cityofasylum.org/program/tony...

cityofasylum.org

Tony Buba & Marcus Rediker Present: "Becoming Benjamin Lay" - City of Asylum

City of Asylum hosts a film screening of a new documentary from director Tony Buba and historian Marcus Rediker, exploring the life and ideas of Benjamin Lay.

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Marcus Rediker @marcusrediker.bsky.social · 03/08/2026

A third thing-I-planned-to-do but never did: write an overview of labor history for 17c/18c North America, a book-length version of my article “Good Hands, Stout Hearts, and Fast Feet.” Commissioned by Eric Foner for Hill & Wang Books. I was too busy with *The Many Headed-Hydra*.

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Marcus Rediker @marcusrediker.bsky.social · 02/08/2026

pghrev.com

Sixteen Writing Tips from Marcus Rediker - Pittsburgh Review of Books

Editor's Note: Acclaimed writer and Distinguished Professor of Atlantic History at the University of Pittsburgh Marcus Rediker has long informally circulated

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Marcus Rediker @marcusrediker.bsky.social · 01/08/2026

Coming in September 2026, a translation into German of my book *Freedom Ship: The Uncharted History of Escaping Slavery by Sea*, courtesy of Assoziation A based in Berlin. www.assoziation-a.de/buch/freihei...

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Marcus Rediker @marcusrediker.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

Grateful to be shortlisted for the MAAH Stone Book Award! (@maahstonebookaward.bsky.social) Congratulations to the authors of all the books!

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Marcus Rediker @marcusrediker.bsky.social · 31/07/2026

Heaven help us. Over the past week I have received thirteen different AI-driven scamming emails from fictive people who say they want to feature one or another of my books in reading clubs. I hope no one out there is falling for this kind of thing.

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Marcus Rediker @marcusrediker.bsky.social · 30/07/2026

Another thing-I-planned-to-do but never did: in 1990 Robin Blackburn invited me to conduct a set of interviews with the great historian Christopher Hill, to be published by Verso Books. The modest Christopher did not want to talk about himself so I relented. I wish I hadn’t. This is a real regret.

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Marcus Rediker @marcusrediker.bsky.social · 29/07/2026

Honored to say the my book *Freedom Ship: The Uncharted History of Escaping Slavery by Sea* (Viking) has been shortlisted for the Stone Book Prize awarded by the Museum of African American History (@maahstonebookaward.bsky.social ebookaward.bsky.social). www.maahstonebookaward.org/library/free...

maahstonebookaward.org

Freedom Ship: The Uncharted History of Escaping Slavery by Sea — MAAH Stone Book Award

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Marcus Rediker @marcusrediker.bsky.social · 28/07/2026

One of those things-I-planned-to-do but never got around to: review Bernard Bailyn’s White Atlantic trilogy on the “peopling of America,” especially *The Barbarous Years*, under the title, “Waiting for the Barbarians.”

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Marcus Rediker @marcusrediker.bsky.social · 27/07/2026

Here’s an interview with one of my favorite poets and musicians, the incomparable Linton Kewsi Johnson. I discovered his work when I went to London for the first time in 1979. LKJ has long been an inspiration. His music was the soundtrack to one of my book, *Outlaws of the Atlantic*.

nytimes.com

‘Dread Beat an Blood’ Set Black Londoners’ Struggle to a Groove (Gift Article)

A newly restored 1979 documentary examines how Linton Kwesi Johnson’s dub-infused poetry documented the challenges faced by Britain’s Black Caribbean population.

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Reposted by Marcus Rediker

Beacon Press @beaconpress.bsky.social · 24/07/2026

@marcusrediker.bsky.social, David Lester, and Paul Buhle call the Amistad uprising one of the best-known examples of resistance to bondage in all of US history. Their graphic novel, THE BLACK SCHOONER offers an important lesson for our own times.

buff.ly

Ron Verzuh reviews The Black Schooner: Rebellion on the Amistad, A Graphic

Ron Verzuh reviews The Black Schooner: Rebellion on the Amistad, A Graphic Novel, by David Lester and Mark Rediker with Paul Buhle (Boston: Beacon Press, 2026) $18.95 / 9780807016909

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Marcus Rediker @marcusrediker.bsky.social · 24/07/2026

Here is an excellent review of our film *Becoming Benjamin Lay* by climate and animal rights activist Lee Hall (@leehall.bsky.social), aptly entitled, “Whose History? Our History.” Thank you, Lee! www.counterpunch.org/2026/07/24/w...

counterpunch.org

Whose History? Our History. A Review of the Documentary Becoming Benjamin Lay

Becoming Benjamin Lay isn’t a documentary about an actor portraying dwarfism, actor Mark Povinelli explains. It’s about portraying one of the great

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Marcus Rediker @marcusrediker.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

I have been studying the Atlantic and its workers for almost fifty years now – a vast historic space of deadly repression and heroic resistance, its sea-bed an unmarked cemetery for millions. These many decades later it still whispers stories to me, especially when it is in this mood.

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Marcus Rediker @marcusrediker.bsky.social · 22/07/2026

I’ve done a lot of interviews, but this one stands out. I spoke with Fritz McAlinden for his podcast, @thestatebetweenus.bsky.social. He asked smart, well-informed questions and I enjoyed the conversation immensely. Love the title: “World-Historical Mischief.” www.patreon.com/TheStateBetw...

patreon.com

33. World-Historical Mischief w/ Marcus Rediker | The State Between Us

Fritz's favorite historian, Marcus Rediker, joins The State Between Us to unearth long-lost nautical stories of bold and brilliant people li

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Reposted by Marcus Rediker

Beacon Press @beaconpress.bsky.social · 17/07/2026

Spielberg’s 1997 film focused on the trial of the African slaves, yielding a whitewashed account that failed to feature the courage of the captives in overthrowing their oppressors. THE BLACK SCHOONER centers the Africans. @marcusrediker.bsky.social

buff.ly

Ron Verzuh reviews The Black Schooner: Rebellion on the Amistad, A Graphic

Ron Verzuh reviews The Black Schooner: Rebellion on the Amistad, A Graphic Novel, by David Lester and Mark Rediker with Paul Buhle (Boston: Beacon Press, 2026) $18.95 / 9780807016909

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Marcus Rediker @marcusrediker.bsky.social · 07/07/2026

When I was in Argentina in 2024 I asked a bunch of people, “Messi or Maradona?” Every single one of them said Maradona. I don’t know ….

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