Your cart is empty

©2026 Fable Group Inc.
3.5 

The Common Wind

By Julius S. Scott & Marcus Rediker
The Common Wind by Julius S. Scott & Marcus Rediker digital book - Fable

Publisher Description

This widely acclaimed and influential work of African American history traces the slave revolts that made the modern revolutionary era.

“An important part of the tradition of scholarship that puts the end of modern slavery in a global perspective.” —Robin D.G. Kelley, author of Freedom Dreams and Race Rebel

Out of the grey expanse of official records in Spanish, English and French, The Common Wind provides a gripping and colorful account of inter-continental communication networks that tied together the free and enslaved masses of the new world, offering a powerful “history from below.”
 
Scott follows the spread of “rumors of emancipation” and the people behind them, bringing to life the protagonists in the slave revolution. By tracking the colliding worlds of buccaneers, military deserters, and maroon communards from Venezuela to Virginia, Scott records the transmission of contagious mutinies and insurrections in unparalleled detail, providing readers with an intellectual history of the enslaved.

Though The Common Wind is credited with having “opened up the Black Atlantic with a rigor and a commitment to the power of written words,” the manuscript remained unpublished for 32 years. Now, after receiving wide acclaim from leading historians of slavery and the New World, it has been published by Verso for the first time, with a foreword by the academic and author Marcus Rediker.

Download the free Fable app

app book lists

Stay organized

Keep track of what you’re reading, what you’ve finished, and what’s next.
app book recommendations

Build a better TBR

Swipe, skip, and save with our smart list-building tool
app book reviews

Rate and review

Share your take with other readers with half stars, emojis, and tags
app comments

Curate your feed

Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communities
app book lists

Stay organized

Keep track of what you’re reading, what you’ve finished, and what’s next.
app book recommendations

Build a better TBR

Swipe, skip, and save with our smart list-building tool
app book reviews

Rate and review

Share your take with other readers with half stars, emojis, and tags
app comments

Curate your feed

Meet readers like you in the Fable For You feed, designed to build bookish communities

The Common Wind Reviews

3.5
“Despite this, I was not intrigued by what I thought would be a very engaging subject matter. I was completely uninterested, and I found myself trudging through. I was initially thinking of leaving this review blank, but I would like to provide some context as to why I rated this book a 3.5. I think I have an aptitude for texts that are a bit dry, dense, verbose, and overly academic to the point of hindrance. However, I found myself completely unintrigued by what I thought would be an incredibly interesting text that deepens the wider global context of the Haitian Revolution. I was uninterested and found myself just trudging through. Oddly, I would still recommend this book because sometimes a book is simply not your cup of tea and it’s not the book…it’s just you.”

About Julius S. Scott

Julius S. Scott is a lecturer of Afroamerican and African Studies at the University of Michigan.

Marcus Rediker is Distinguished Professor of Atlantic History at the University of Pittsburgh and Senior Research Fellow at the Collège d’études mondiales in Paris. He is the author of numerous prize-winning books, including The Many-Headed Hydra (with Peter Linebaugh), The Slave Ship, and The Amistad Rebellion. He produced the award-winning documentary film Ghosts of Amistad, about how the Amistad Mutiny of 1839 lives on today in popular memory among the people of Sierra Leone.

Start a Book Club

Start a public or private book club with this book on the Fable app today!

FAQ

Do I have to buy the ebook to participate in a book club?

Why can’t I buy the ebook on the app?

How is Fable’s reader different from Kindle?

Do you sell physical books too?

Are book clubs free to join on Fable?

How do I start a book club with this book on Fable?

Notification Icon
©2026 Fable Group Inc.
Fable uses the TMDB API but is not endorsed or certified by TMDB