Pirates

Piracy is as old as maritime trade itself. Wherever ships carried wealth beyond the protection of the shore, raiders followed-sometimes condemned as criminals, sometimes commissioned as privateers, and sometimes celebrated as national heroes. Pirates: From Ancient Raiders to the Modern High Seas presents a sweeping history of piracy across more than three thousand years. From the sea raiders who threatened ancient Greece and Rome to Viking war bands, Mediterranean corsairs, Elizabethan Sea Dogs and the buccaneers of the Caribbean, it reveals how piracy grew from the recurring collision of commerce, political ambition and weak maritime authority. It examines the rise of Port Royal and Nassau, the calculated terror of Blackbeard, the shipboard rules of pirate companies and the remarkable careers of figures such as Grace O’Malley, Henry Every, William Kidd and Zheng Yi Sao. The story continues far beyond the traditional Golden Age. Revolutionary privateers fought across the Americas, steam-powered gunboats extended imperial control, and modern criminal organisations adapted piracy to container shipping, oil tankers and global communications. Somali ransom gangs, Gulf of Guinea kidnappers and armed robbers in Southeast Asia demonstrate that piracy has never truly disappeared. Richly detailed and global in scope, this is the story not only of the pirates themselves, but also of the merchants, governments, captives, investors and coastal communities that made their world possible.