Red Round Globe Hot Burning

"Peter Linebaugh is acknowledged as a chronicler with a left-wing view. He is also described as a historian of genius. His book presents us with the facts, and what a glorious luxury that is. But of course we have a choice about which facts we want to examine, and he assiduously takes us up neglected side roads on a journey to America, England, Haiti, Honduras, Ireland and Nicaragua. And to prison. In Red Round Globe Hot Burning he invites us to benefit from his lifetime of reading and writing." * Irish Times * "Offers unconventional biography and unconventional history. Linebaugh goes where biographers and historians are often taught not to go: to places where there are no archival records and where a writer has to be inventive and imaginative. . . . Few tomes are as much fun to read." * Counterpunch * "Red Round Globe Hot Burning is a disturbing and challenging book. It kept me awake and note-taking through a whole night. . . . Linebaugh's exploration of the assault on the Commons and how our antecedents struggled to resist the depredations is an invaluable education." * International Socialism * "While it is nearly impossible to convey the flow of subjects embodied in Red Round Globe Hot Burning, the sweep of interracial history, the place of seemingly ordinary people in challenging the very basis of class society, will be understood better by those reading this worthy volume." * Truthout * "Peter Linebaugh has produced another masterful history 'from below' . . . . In language that is sometimes visceral, imaginative and often sublimely eloquent he analyses the conditions in which people were living and working, making connections, while leaving the reader with a global overview of the struggle against colonial and imperial power." * Socialist Review * "Once more, Peter Linebaugh highlights uncomfortable truths." * Monthly Review * "An erudite work by a scholar who adapted classic 'history from below' to more diverse subjects, while integrating environmental history and literary studies . . . Red Round Globe Hot Burning will hold the interest of a wide array of historians. The vignettes collected in the book display the burning power of ideas in a period of tumultuous change." * Journal of Interdisciplinary History * "Red Round Globe Hot Burning is [Linebaugh's] greatest masterpiece yet in a lifetime of triumphs. It is a mind-blowing contribution to his lifelong quest for the commons. . . . You have a writer of such extraordinary power that reading him can move you to tears (and will always lift your spirits)." * Independent Left * "A live, immediate, textured portrait." * World History Connected * "Far-ranging and fascinating. . . . It is impossible to summarize briefly the enormously rich content of this work." * Fifth Estate * "Very occasionally a book comes along that anyone with an interest in history and politics must read, and this is such a book. . . . An immensely rewarding book and worth the effort to accompany Linebaugh on his journey through history." * Irish Marxist Review * "Astonishing . . . . Builds on decades of research and investigation, the meticulous sifting of popular archives that span the Atlantic and combine political broadsheets, scientific tracts, and folksongs.. . . . Reading the book as the murder of George Floyd sparked the Black Lives Matter movement into a global reckoning with legacies of slavery, war, colonialism and empire, it was hard not to feel a tingle on the back of the neck." * Antipode * "It is a treat to have a wonderfully erudite scholar determined to instruct and entertain readers. . . . In an historiographical world in which historians are expected to be balanced and practise cool ironic detachment, it is fun to read a book where the writer's heart is always on his sleeve. Linebaugh gives a marvellous portrait of one of the most interesting peri

Peter Linebaugh is a historian and the author of The Magna Carta Manifesto,The Incomplete, True, Authentic, and Wonderful History of May Day, and Stop, Thief!, among many others, and the co-author, with Marcus Rediker, of The Many-Headed Hydra. His articles have appeared in publications that include CounterPunch, the New Left Review, and Radical History Review.

Acknowledgments Foreword Introduction PART ONE * THE QUEST SECTION A * THE QUEST 1 * The Grave of a Woman 2 * Quest for the Commons SECTION B * THANATOCRACY 3 * Despard at the Gallows 4 * Gallows Humor and the Gibbets of Civilization 5 * Apples from the Green Tree of Liberty SECTION C * UNDERGROUND 6 * The Anthropocene and the Stages of History 7 * E. P. Thompson and the Irish Commons PART TWO * ATLANTIC MOUNTAINS SECTION D * IRELAND 8 * Habendum and the Anglo-Irish Ascendancy 9 * Hotchpot, or Celtic Communism 10 * "That's True Anyhow" 11 * A Boy amid the Whiteboys 12 * The Same Cont. SECTION E * AMERICA 13 * America! Utopia! Equality! Crap. 14 * Cooperation and Survival in Jamaica 15 * Nicaragua and the Miskito Commons 16 * Honduras and the Mayan Commons SECTION F * HAITI 17 * Haiti and Thelwall 18 * Ireland and Volney 19 * A Spot in Time 20 * Their Son SECTION G * ENGLAND 21 * "A System of Man-Eaters" 22 * The Goose and the Commons, c. 1802 23 * "The Den of Thieves" 24 * Commons or True Commons PART THREE * LOVE AND STRUGGLE SECTION H * THE "BUSINESS" 25 * "The Business" 26 * The Kiss of Love and Equalization 27 * Criminalization in the Labor Process 28 * Irish Labor, English Coal SECTION I * PRISON 29 * In Debt in Prison 30 * In Prison without a Spoon: The Commons of the Meal 31 * Rackets in King's Bench Prison: The Commons of Play 32 * Catherine Despard Confronts the Penitentiary SECTION J * TWO STORIES 33 * "The Whole Business of Man" 34 * The Red Cap of Liberty 35 * The Red-Crested Bird and Black Duck 36 * What Is the Human Race? Works Cited Index