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.

• AcknowledgmentsForewordIntroductionPART ONE • THE QUESTSECTION A • THE QUEST1 • The Grave of a Woman2 • Quest for the CommonsSECTION B • THANATOCRACY3 • Despard at the Gallows4 • Gallows Humor and the Gibbets of Civilization5 • Apples from the Green Tree of LibertySECTION C • UNDERGROUND6 • The Anthropocene and the Stages of History7 • E. P. Thompson and the Irish CommonsPART TWO • ATLANTIC MOUNTAINSSECTION D • IRELAND8 • Habendum and the Anglo-Irish Ascendancy9 • Hotchpot, or Celtic Communism10 • “That’s True Anyhow”11 • A Boy amid the Whiteboys12 • The Same Cont.SECTION E • AMERICA13 • America! Utopia! Equality! Crap.14 • Cooperation and Survival in Jamaica15 • Nicaragua and the Miskito Commons16 • Honduras and the Mayan CommonsSECTION F • HAITI17 • Haiti and Thelwall18 • Ireland and Volney19 • A Spot in Time20 • Their SonSECTION G • ENGLAND21 • “A System of Man-Eaters”22 • The Goose and the Commons, c. 180223 • “The Den of Thieves”24 • Commons or True CommonsPART THREE • LOVE AND STRUGGLESECTION H • THE "BUSINESS"25 • “The Business”26 • The Kiss of Love and Equalization27 • Criminalization in the Labor Process28 • Irish Labor, English CoalSECTION I • PRISON29 • In Debt in Prison30 • In Prison without a Spoon: The Commons of the Meal31 • Rackets in King’s Bench Prison: The Commons of Play32 • Catherine Despard Confronts the PenitentiarySECTION J • TWO STORIES33 • “The Whole Business of Man”34 • The Red Cap of Liberty35 • The Red-Crested Bird and Black Duck36 • What Is the Human Race?Works CitedIndex

“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.”