A longer review will come with a second reading.

The Common Wind covers the phenomena of the growing Atlantic World and the belief in the connections between countries and people in this region. Scott adds the growing histography (and honestly, if this had been published earlier, he would have been THE trailblazer) of the interconnectedness of the Atlantic world. Looking at the movement of information from mariners and other common folk to enslaved and other stationary people. A work of intellectual history, The Common Wind sets itself in the age of the Haitian Revolution. Stemming for Scotts' dissertation, the book has short chapters packed with a lot of information.

Second Reading:
The Common Wind examines mobile figures and the largely invisible runaway railroad which shows how news, ideas and social excitement travelled around the Atlantic in the late 18th century. Scott shows readers how mobile people used webs of commerce and their own autonomous mobility to form subversive networks that the ruling class might not have been aware of. He shows that the towns were network centers and places where masterless people dwelled. Caribbean port cities specifically were magnets for people seeking personal independence. Shows and seafaring skills allowed for long rand communication and access. Sailors and Blacks generally had amiable relationships and confidence in each other. Many runaways had sea experience and would go to ships. Multilingual Blacks were a threat, as they were able to transmit ideas of freedom across language barriers.

Julius Scott was ahead of his time in the 1980s, I wonder how much father the historiography would have been if it had been published then instead of over 30 years later. I'd say Scott focuses his argument on the Angl-Caribbean and brings in the Spanish and French Caribbean to help with his arguments. He does focus on how the Haitian revolution affected the Atlantic World but he does not focus on the people in Haiti, but rather those who interacted with or ran to Haiti. I think his first chapters are his strongest and the later chapters have weaker arguments and conclusions. Reading through the work, one can tell it probably needed more polishing but it is good nonetheless that it was published at all. To sum it up - Scott shows readers how rulers tried to deny Black rebels access to the sea to limit the spread of revolution, masterless people still showed up everywhere despite the restrictions, and free Blacks migrated to Haiti during the revolution and long afterwards.