Customer Reviews

Bandits at Sea: A Pirates Reader

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This book is a collection of scholarly essays on the subject of historical piracy the world over. It's divided into two sections, "Situating Piracy" and "Pirates in Action."

Essays in the first section are more general/historical, discussing piracy in general as a career, its effects on local economies and politics, its role in warfare and trade. Personally I didn't much care for this section, largely because I'm more of a scholar of the story of the individual and i already have a pretty good working grasp of how piracy related to these other areas of societal structure. I imagine though that if you are relatively new to piratical research this section would be very handy in getting a grasp on this sort of background and "worldview" perspective.

The second section focuses more on specific pirates/crews/ships/cultures, and spans a wide range of topics, from Cheng I Sao's Chinese pirate fleet, to minorities in piracy (gays, blacks, women, etc), to the little-known pirate culture of the Adriatic Uskoks. This section I found to be completely engrossing and wonderfully rich with research and detail, on subjects one rarely sees explored in depth (though perhaps moreso of late as piracy scholarship becomes wider-known and more popular as a subject of academic research).

There's a section of illustration plates in the center of the book, comprised of various historical/period woodcuts, engravings, maps, portraits, diagrams, and other media, including a facinating diagram of the "genealogy" of pirate crews in the golden age of piracy--apparently all pirate crews at the time could be traced through the training of the captains, who sprang off from whose crews to man their own ships, which all originated with two "paterfamilias" pirate captains, Hornigold and Low.

I recommend this book highly to anyone interested in piratical research!

Pirates At Sea is an excellent set of 15 articles edited by C. R. Pennell. It is a book suitable for those with a more scholarly interest in the subject of piracy at sea. The title is a little misleading in the sense that it could attract readers looking for narratives arout piracy. For me, however, it provided both comment and anaysis of questions I am particularly concerned about. It is a thoroughly stimulating set of readings.

This book is a very detailed discussion about golden age piracy in the Caribbean, the Mediterranean, and Asian waters. If you do not have a general background of pirates, this book could be rather difficult to grasp, as it is a compilation of essays and articles from scholars and experts. Great for college classrooms.