Peter Linebaugh is an historian and the author of The London Hanged, The Magna Carta Manifesto,The Incomplete, True, Authentic, and Wonderful History of May Day, and Stop, Thief!, and the coauthor, 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.”