Category: Pirate books

A General History of the Pyrates by Captain Charles Johnson

A General History of the Pyrates by Captain Charles Johnson was published in 1724. As the primary source of biographies of some of the most notorious pirates it influenced popular conceptions of the lifestyles. Missing legs or eyes, burying treasure and the name of the pirates flag the Jolly Roger was introduced in this touchstone of pirate lore as it has been incorporated into popular culture. A General History of the Pyrates has influencing literature and movies to this day.

This book can be read online on the Internet Archive website. The 1728 volume is available on the Project Gutenberg site.

Pages: 280

Published: 2012 (first published 1724)

ISBN: 978-1479322572

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The Buccaneers of America: A True Account of the Most Remarkable Assaults Committed of Late Years upon the Coasts of the West Indies by the Buccaneers of Jamaica & Tortuga by Alexandre O Exquemelin

Editied by Matt Albers, translated by William Swan Sonnenschein

The West Indies in the late 17th Century was home to a group of sea raiders that were not yet pirates, and not quite privateers. The Buccaneers. The Brethren of the Coast, as they called themselves, lived dissolute lives of violence, debauchery, thievery, & murder.

These are the stories of Captain Henry Morgan and his raids on Campeche, Porto Bello, and Panama. Of Francois l’Ollonias and the terror he inflicted on the people of Maracaibo and Cabo Gracis a Dios. Of Pierre le Picard, Roche Brasiliano, and Pierre le Grand. These are the first Pirates of the Caribbean.

From the English city of Port Royal & the French island of Tortuga they sailed in fleets of small ships hunting for Spanish silver.…

Life Under the Jolly Roger: Reflections on Golden Age Piracy by Gabriel Kuhn

Over the last couple of decades, an ideological battle has raged over the political legacy and cultural symbolism of the “golden age” pirates who roamed the seas between the Caribbean Islands and the Indian Ocean from roughly 1690 to 1725. They are depicted as romanticized villains on the one hand and as genuine social rebels on the other. Life Under the Jolly Roger examines the political and cultural significance of these nomadic outlaws by relating historical accounts to a wide range of theoretical concepts—reaching from Marshall Sahlins and Pierre Clastres to Mao Zedong and Eric J. Hobsbawm via Friedrich Nietzsche and Michel Foucault. With daring theoretical speculation and passionate, respectful inquiry, Gabriel Kuhn skillfully contextualizes and analyzes the meanings of race, gender, sexuality, and disability in golden age pirate communities, while also surveying the breathtaking array of pirates’ forms of organization, economy, and ethics.…

Villains of All Nations: Atlantic Pirates in the Golden Age by Marcus Rediker

Villains of All Nations explores the ‘Golden Age’ of Atlantic piracy (1716-1726) and the infamous generation whose images underlie our modern, romanticized view of pirates.

Rediker introduces us to the dreaded black flag, the Jolly Roger; swashbuckling figures such as Edward Teach, better known as Blackbeard; and the unnamed, unlimbed pirate who was likely Robert Louis Stevenson’s model for Long John Silver in Treasure Island.

This history shows from the bottom up how sailors emerged from deadly working conditions on merchant and naval ships, turned pirate, and created a starkly different reality aboard their own ships, electing their officers, dividing their booty equitably, and maintaining a multinational social order. The real lives of this motley crew-which included cross-dressing women, people of color, and the’outcasts of all nations’-are far more compelling than contemporary myth.

Pages: 248

Published: 2005

ISBN: ‎ 978-0807050255

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Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea: Merchant Seamen, Pirates and the Anglo-American Maritime World, 1700-1750 by Marcus Rediker

The common seaman and the pirate in the age of sail are romantic historical figures who occupy a special place in the popular culture of the modern age. And yet in many ways, these daring men remain little known to us. Like most other poor working people of the past, they left few first-hand accounts of their lives. But their lives are not beyond recovery. In this book, Marcus Rediker uses a huge array of historical sources (court records, diaries, travel accounts, and many others) to reconstruct the social cultural world of the Anglo-American seamen and pirates who sailed the seas in the first half of the eighteenth century. Rediker tours the sailor’s North Atlantic, following seamen and their ships along the pulsing routes of trade and into rowdy port towns.…