Pirates Of The Atlantic

Pirates have long been stock figures in popular culture, from Treasure Island to the more recent antics of Jack Sparrow. Villains of all Nations unearths the thrilling historical truth behind such fictional characters and rediscovers their radical democratic challenge to the established powers of the day.

Eighteen swashbuckling sea robbers brought to life.

The reality beyond the myths and stories about pirates operating off the Canadian coast.

This maritime history "from below" exposes the history-making power of common sailors, slaves, pirates, and other outlaws at sea in the era of the tall ship. In Outlaws of the Atlantic, award-winning historian Marcus Rediker turns maritime history upside down. He explores the dramatic world of maritime adventure, not from the perspective of admirals, merchants, and nation-states but from the viewpoint of commoners—sailors, slaves, indentured servants, pirates, and other outlaws from the late seventeenth to the early nineteenth century. Bringing together their seafaring experiences for the first time, Outlaws of the Atlantic is an unexpected and compelling peoples’ history of the “age of sail.” With his signature bottom-up approach and insight, Rediker reveals how the “motley”—that is, multiethnic—crews were a driving force behind the American Revolution; that pirates, enslaved Africans, and other outlaws worked together to subvert capitalism; and that, in the era of the tall ship, outlaws challenged authority from below deck. By bringing these marginal seafaring characters into the limelight, Rediker shows how maritime actors have shaped history that many have long regarded as national and landed. And by casting these rebels by sea as cosmopolitan workers of the world, he reminds us that to understand the rise of capitalism, globalization, and the formation of race and class, we must look to the sea.

‘A General History of the Pyrates’ is a captivating account of some of history’s most notorious pirates. The author, writing as Captain Charles Johnson, blends fiction and non-fiction to provide readers with a most entertaining version of these iconic heroes and villains. This book was a massive success upon its first release due to its adventurous stories filled with danger and treasure and its influence lives on to this day as it shaped the modern view of pirates. Some of the best accounts in the book are of the infamous Blackbeard and the trailblazing female pirates Anne Bonny and Mary Read. ‘A General History of the Pyrates’ is the definitive story of the golden age of piracy and should be read by fans of books such as ‘Treasure Island’ and movies such as ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’. Daniel Defoe (1660 – 1731) is one of the most important authors in the English language. Defoe was one of the original English novelists and greatly helped to popularise the form. Defoe was highly prolific and is believed to have written over 300 works ranging from novels to political pamphlets. He was highly celebrated but also controversial as his writings influenced politicians but also led to Defoe being imprisoned. Defoe’s novels have been translated into many languages and are still read across the globe to this day. Some of his most famous books include ‘Moll Flanders’ and ‘Robinson Crusoe’ which was adapted into a movie starring Pierce Brosnan and Damian Lewis in 1997. Defoe’s influence on English novels cannot be understated and his legacy lives on to this day.

Twelve authors shed new light on the true history and enduring mythology of seventeenth– and eighteenth–century pirates in this anthology of scholarly essays. The twelve entries in The Golden Age of Piracy discuss why pirates thrived in the seas of the New World, how pirates operated their plundering ventures, how governments battled piracy, and when and why piracy declined. Separating Hollywood myth from historical fact, these essays bring the real pirates of the Caribbean to life with a level of rigor and insight rarely applied to the subject. The Golden Age of Piracy also delves into the enduring status of pirates as pop culture icons. Audiences have devoured stories about cutthroats such as Blackbeard and Henry Morgan since before Robert Louis Stevenson wrote Treasure Island. By looking at the ideas of gender and sexuality surrounding pirate stories, the renewed interest in hunting for pirate treasure, and the construction of pirate myths, the contributing authors tell a new story about the dangerous men, and a few dangerous women, who terrorized the high seas. Contributors: Douglas R. Burgess, Guy Chet, John A. Coakley, Carolyn Eastman, Adam Jortner, Peter T. Leeson, Margarette Lincoln, Virginia W. Lunsford, Kevin P. McDonald, Carla Gardina Pestana, Matthew Taylor Raffety, and David Wilson.

In the late seventeenth and early eighteenth centuries, more than a thousand pirates poured from the Atlantic into the Indian Ocean. There, according to Kevin P. McDonald, they helped launch an informal trade network that spanned the Atlantic and Indian Ocean worlds, connecting the North American colonies with the rich markets of the East Indies. Rather than conducting their commerce through chartered companies based in London or Lisbon, colonial merchants in New York entered into an alliance with Euro-American pirates based in Madagascar. Pirates, Merchants, Settlers, and Slaves explores the resulting global trade network located on the peripheries of world empires and shows the illicit ways American colonists met the consumer demand for slaves and East India goods. The book reveals that pirates played a significant yet misunderstood role in this period and that seafaring slaves were both commodities and essential components in the Indo-Atlantic maritime networks. Enlivened by stories of Indo-Atlantic sailors and cargoes that included textiles, spices, jewels and precious metals, chinaware, alcohol, and drugs, this book links previously isolated themes of piracy, colonialism, slavery, transoceanic networks, and cross-cultural interactions and extends the boundaries of traditional Atlantic, national, world, and colonial histories.

“An epic history of piracy . . . Goodall explores the role of these legendary rebels and describes the fine line between piracy and privateering.” —WYPR The story of Chesapeake pirates and patriots begins with a land dispute and ends with the untimely death of an oyster dredger at the hands of the Maryland Oyster Navy. From the golden age of piracy to Confederate privateers and oyster pirates, the maritime communities of the Chesapeake Bay are intimately tied to a fascinating history of intrigue, plunder and illicit commerce raiding. Author Jamie L.H. Goodall introduces infamous men like Edward “Blackbeard” Teach and “Black Sam” Bellamy, as well as lesser-known local figures like Gus Price and Berkeley Muse, whose tales of piracy are legendary from the harbor of Baltimore to the shores of Cape Charles. “Rather than an unchanging monolith, Goodall creates a narrative filled with dynamic movement and exchange between the characters, setting, conflict, and resolution of her story. Goodall positioned this narrative to be successful on different levels.” —International Social Science Review

Bad Bart is the biggest, burliest boy pirate in the Atlantic. Mean Mo is the maddest, mightiest girl pirate in the Pacific. When they meet in the middle, it's a no-holds-barred contest to see who is the best pirate in the world. They test who is brave enough to swim with sharks, who is strong enough to throw a cannonball, who can eat the most hard tack, and who has collected the most treasure. Again and again their respective crews proclaim, "Tie!" Bad Bart and Mean Mo stare each other down and . . . fall head over heads in love! This epic tale of the union of two pirate captains is told in seadog lingo and illustrated with of knockout oceanic battles.

This Open Access book, Crisis and Legitimacy in Atlantic American Narratives of Piracy: 1678-1865, examines literary and visual representations of piracy beginning with A.O. Exquemelin’s 1678 Buccaneers of America and ending at the onset of the US-American Civil War. Examining both canonical and understudied texts—from Puritan sermons, James Fenimore Cooper’s The Red Rover, and Herman Melville’s “Benito Cereno” to the popular cross-dressing female pirate novelette Fanny Campbell, and satirical decorated Union envelopes, this book argues that piracy acted as a trope to negotiate ideas of legitimacy in the contexts of U.S. colonialism, nationalism, and expansionism. The readings demonstrate how pirates were invoked in transatlantic literary production at times when dominant conceptions of legitimacy, built upon categorizations of race, class, and gender, had come into crisis. As popular and mobile maritime outlaw figures, it is suggested, pirates asked questions about might and right at critical moments of Atlantic history.