Watch Dr. Rediker discuss using filmmaking to bring history alive.
Fields
Early American History
Atlantic History
Teaching
U.S. History Survey to 1865
Global History of Piracy
Colonial America
American Revolution
Reading Marx and Engels
Readings in Early American History
Theory and Method in Social/Cultural History
Atlantic History, 1500–1800
Africa and the Atlantic
America/Atlantic/World
How to Write History from Below
- PhD, University of Pennsylvania, 1982
Education & Training
- Dai Ho Chun Chair, College of Arts, Languages & Letters, University of Hawai’i-Mānoa, fall 2024
- Dan and Maggie Inouye Distinguished Chair in Democratic Ideals, University of Hawai’i-Mānoa, spring 2019
- John E. O’Connor Film Award, American Historical Association (best documentary of 2015) for Ghosts of Amistad: In the Footsteps of the Rebels
- Chancellor’s Distinguished Research Award, University of Pittsburgh, 2014.
- Racial Justice Award (for work promoting equality in the field of education), YWCA Center for Race and Gender Equity, Pittsburgh, 2013.
- Sol Stetin Award for Labor History, the Sidney Hillman Foundation (lifetime achievement in labor history, 2013)
- Senior Scholar in Residence, Society for the Humanities, Cornell University (2009)
- AHA James A. Rawley Prize (2008)
- George Washington Book Prize (2008)
- OAH Merle Curti Award (2008)
- National Endowment for the Humanities Fellow (2005-2006)
- American Council of Learned Societies Fellow (2005-2006)
- Distinguished Lecturer, OAH (2002–08)
- International Labor History Book Prize (2001)
- OAH Merle Curti Social History Book Award (1988)
- ASA John Hope Franklin Book Prize (1988)
Ghosts of Amistad: In the Footsteps of the Rebels
The Black Schooner: Rebellion on the Amistad, A Graphic Novel , with David Lester and Paul Buhle (Beacon Press, forthcoming 2026).
Fearless Benjamin: The Quaker Dwarf who Fought Slavery, children’s book with Michelle Markel and artist Sarah Bachman, (PM Press (2025).
Freedom Ship: The Uncharted History of Escaping Slavery by Sea (Viking-Penguin, 2025).
Revolution by Fire: The New York Afro-Irish Conspiracy of 1741, A Graphic Novel, with David Lester and Paul Buhle (Beacon Press, 2024).
The Return of Benjamin Lay, with Naomi Wallace (Faber and Faber, 2023)
Under the Banner of King Death: Pirates of the Atlantic, A Graphic Novel, with David Lester and Paul Buhle (Beacon Press, 2023)
Prophet against Empire: Benjamin Lay, a Graphic Novel, with David Lester and Paul Buhle (Beacon Press, 2021)
The Fearless Benjamin Lay: The Quaker Dwarf who became the First Revolutionary Abolitionist (Beacon Press 2017)
Outlaws of the Atlantic: Sailors, Pirates, and Motley Crews in the Age of Sail (Beacon Press/Verso, 2014)
The Amistad Rebellion: An Atlantic Odyssey of Slavery and Freedom (Viking-Penguin 2012)
The Slave Ship A Human History (Viking-Penguin 2007)
Many Middle Passages: Forced Migration and the Making of the Modern World, ed. with Emma Christopher and Cassandra Pybus (University of California Press 2007)
Villains of All Nations: Atlantic Pirates in the Golden Age (Beacon Press/Verso 2004)
The Many-Headed Hydra: Sailors, Slaves, Commoners, and the Hidden History of the Revolutionary Atlantic (Beacon Press/Verso 2000), coauthor: Peter Linebaugh
Who Built America? Working People and the Nation’s Economy, Politics, Culture, and Society, Volume 1 (Pantheon Books 1989)
Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea: Merchant Seamen, Pirates, and the Anglo-American Maritime World, 1700–1750 (Cambridge University Press 1987)
The History of "History from Below"
