Life Among the Pirates

The Way People Live

by Stuart A. Kallen

Discusses facts and myths about pirates who sailed and plundered on the seas from the sixteenth to the nineteenth century

Genres: History, Nonfiction

96 pages, Library Binding

First published January 1, 1999

About the author

Kallen has written more than 350 nonfiction books for children and young adults. His books have covered a wide arc of human history, culture, and science. Kallen is also an accomplished singer-songwriter and guitarist in San Diego, California

Reviews

[Samantha · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is both easy to read and super informative about pirates. It talks some about the myths, but only to contrast them to the actual facts about how pirates lived. There is a large history focus, but this focus helps explain why there was a golden age of piracy and why it ended.

I read this for research on writing pirates in various fantasy settings, but I still got a ton out of this--with the history bits helping explain why pirates were so active in the first place. If you don't care about the dates and countries, there's still plenty to learn about pirates in this book.

The chapters and sections flow together well, and there's plenty of images and side notes as well. It's easy to flip through if you're looking for a specific section and is great for a quick reference.

While I've researched a little bit about pirates online, this book gave me knowledge I didn't even know I needed. I know I keep singing this book's praises, but I was never bored reading it, learned a lot of interesting tidbits about real world stuff, and now have a lot more knowledge and ideas than I did before for pirates in fantasy settings. I'm so glad I decided to pick this book up.