Pirates: The Complete History From 1300 Bc To The Present Day

by Angus Konstam

Angus Konstam sets sail through the brutal history of piracy, separating myth from legend and fact from fiction. Pirates takes us into the depths of the pirate's dark world, examining the many colorful characters from Cretans and Vikings to French corsairs and the British rogues of the golden age of piracy, such as Blackbeard and Captain Kidd and even two women pirates, Mary Read and Ann Bonny, who became pregnant to avoid execution. A blood-soaked, riveting account, it provides a complete history of the fearsome threat on the high seas from the marauders in the pages of antiquity to the Somali pirates in the headlines of today.

Genres: History, Pirates, Nonfiction

336 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 2011

About the author

Angus Konstam is a Scottish writer of popular history. Born in Aberdeen, Scotland and raised on the Orkney Islands, he has written more than a hundred books on maritime history, naval history, historical atlases, with a special focus on the history of piracy.

Reviews

[Sage · Rating 2 out of 5]

2.5 stars? Wildly uneven & contains much creepy glamorization of piracy, including kidnapping, rape, murder, torture, drug trafficking, and slavery, with a laughably unconvincing statement of authorial moral disapproval tacked onto the end of a book otherwise full of describing perpetrators as "great" and "heroic". (Tbf, the 3 scariest get called "psychopath" too.)

Uh. *facepalm*

Also in facepalm territory, Konstam squarely blames lack of local law enforcement for the existence of piracy, and never once addresses the socioecononics of the place and time as a fundamental cause.

The historical detail wrt English-speaking pirates is pretty fantastic. Less so with other European languages, while the chapter on China is ridiculously thin and veers well into White Man's Burden territory by the end. Gah.

Better is the section on sanitized "piracy-lite" in pop culture, designed to appeal to get-away-with-it culture and little kids with anti-authoritarian streaks who nevertheless latch onto a firm code of pirate ethics, although it's pretty clear that the author has a giant crush on Johnny Depp.

[Denise · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Complete" and "in-depth" might be somewhat of an overstatement considering just how much history Konstam attempts to cover in a relatively short book. It's a pretty good overview though, the subject continues to fascinate me, and frankly I don't understand people complaing that this is too dry - I find the author's style quite sufficiently engaging to keep me interested in what he has to say.

[Thomas · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent general overview of pirate history which gives a rough play by play of and historical context for basically all the big piratical careers plus a general analysis of how the various ages of piracy. The book is very comprehensive, sometimes so much so it feels like he cut out some important stuff. For instance he skips over the many many wars that defined Europe in the 15th-19th centuries just a bit but I suppose that's best for brevity's sake. Though I think he should address the influence and history of Spain in connection with this topic a bit more.

I do not think his analysis was hard enough on colonialism nor the class divide in the maritime world. He is reasonably hard on the pirates as bad people, but like they are also just a symptom of a problem (Colonialism, Early stage capitalism, the Atlantic slave trade) not the problem itself. He tries very hard to deromanticize pirates (which is good don't get me wrong), but I think leads him to swing the other way just a bit.

In the sections on more modern history he equates pirates with terrorism which is an interesting but underdeveloped comparison. The last 50 pages of the book is a breezy read sadly. He is also bending the definition of pirate a bit too much for me when he includes state actors like the Chinese and Iranian coast guard. Frankly I would read these last 50 pages expanded into a whole book, it's a interesting topic.

Over all entirely worth a read for anyone interested in the subject, regardless of how much you already know about piracy. An excellent overview of a vast and sprawling topic, that it thoroughly enjoyable at all points.

[Rachel · Rating 1 out of 5]

Way too dry to be even remotely entertaining.

[Paul Adams · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some good tidbits but was a bit long in places.

[Pawel · Rating 3 out of 5]

lost me completely once the Chinese modern day and movie pirates started. seems like copied and pasted off Wikipedia, the beginning until then was very informative and easy to read.

[Tara · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a very thorough rendering of pirate history. While I find the depth and breadth of knowledge by author amazing, the book was dry and somewhat boring. Overall, it was put together well.