The Bloody Flag

The 1789 mutiny aboard the Bounty remains the most famous maritime uprising of its era, and perhaps of all time. But in The Bloody Flag, Niklas Frykman portrays an era of lower-deck turbulence of far greater magnitude. . . . Most uprisings, according to this slender, informative volume, embodied a radical maritime culture that would not again arise on such a spectacular scale until the 20th century. * Wall Street Journal * Frykman breathes life into his subject in this vividly written tale of an oft-underrepresented history. Readers interested in maritime, naval, labor, and Atlantic history will greatly enjoy. * Library Journal * A significant contribution to Atlantic labor history. * Boston Review * As Frykman takes his reader on a whirlwind ride across the Atlantic Ocean during the Era of Revolution, he weaves a compelling narrative that draws on material cultural, ideology and mariner's biographies. Although numerous studies of the Era of Revolution abound, Frykman's book employs a novel methodology that connects this age with the Communist Revolution. * Northern Mariner * In an extraordinary exercise of archival legwork, the author incorporates material from multiple British, French, Dutch, and Swedish archives. Collectively, his multilingual evidentiary base conclusively demonstrates the striking degree of transnational camaraderie driving many of these mutinies. The Bloody Flag brings to the fore the ways sailors conversed and collaborated across the era's political and cultural barriers to effect change. . . . Frykman thus provides important inspiration for the present in his insightful treatment of the past. * Journal of American History * [An] important new book. . . .The Bloody Flag leaves little doubt that the convergence of great power militancy, scarce maritime labor, and the growth of radical republicanism account for a crucial phase in the formation of a cohesive Atlantic working class. * Journal of British Studies *