The Pirate World: A History of the Most Notorious Sea Robbers by Angus Konstam

My rating: 5 of 5 stars


If not for Captain Charles Johnson and his 1724 bestseller, The General History of Pyrates, would we find pirates as fascinating as we do? Konstam certainly believes this is true, yet he also points out that “pirate” and the many synonyms we attribute to the scoundrels Johnson wrote about had different meanings in that time period. And many of the piratical elements we associate with these pirates may not apply to pirates of earlier or later centuries. Konstam’s main objective in his latest offering is “to strip away the myths and inventions from these historical figures to reveal the brutal but utterly fascinating world of piracy as it really was.” (7)

Piracy throughout history encompasses a lot of information, but the author succeeds in paring it down and presenting it in an entertaining and informative manner. He provides readers with a good grasp of sea marauding from its earliest days through the present, and also explores their portrayal in fiction. The eleven chapters are presented in chronological format, beginning with the ancient world. From there we meet medieval pirates, Renaissance sea dogs, Barbary corsairs, buccaneers, golden age pirates and those of the Pirate Round, pirates of the 19th century, Chinese pirates, and modern-day pirates. To enhance our understanding and reading pleasure, Konstam includes a plethora of color artwork, quotes from contemporary documents, notes, a select bibliography, and an index. Color maps indicate where pirates sailed and are accompanied by keys that explain what they did when, though not for all pirates mentioned in the text. Information deserving special focus appears in highlighted boxes and features topics such as Spanish coinage, pirate ships and guns, corsair galleys, Jolly Rogers, and pirate codes.

Among the many marauders readers meet within this volume are Cilicians, Vikings, Sir Francis Drake and Sir John Hawkins, Aruj “Barbarossa” and his brother Khair-Ed-Din, Murat Rais and Murat the Younger, Sir Henry Morgan, Laurens de Graaf, Benjamin Hornigold, Blackbeard, Anne Bonny and Mary Read, Edward Low, Bartholomew Roberts, Thomas Tew, Henry Every, Christopher Condent, Jean Lafitte, Koxinga, Cheng I Sao, Shap-’ng-Tsai, and pirates of Somalia and Nigeria. A few men who fought against piracy – for example Woodes Rogers and James Brook – are also mentioned. Long John Silver, Captain Blood, and those of the Disney franchise, Pirates of the Caribbean are among the fictional pirates that are included.

Konstam provides a good overview of real pirates, and his conclusion about those of the Caribbean is quite interesting. He presents the material in a way that makes it easy for readers to picture these marauders more clearly, and to understand how they operated and what drove them to piracy. The Pirate World, indeed, separates myth from reality and commendably demonstrates that while fascinating, the men and women who chose this path in life could also be quite brutal.




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