Pirates

Few stories of the sea are as colorful as this one. Within these pages, the notorious raiders of the late seventeenth century come alive: Blackbeard, Captain Kidd, Mary Read, Anne Bonny, Henry Avery and many more. The author examines the codes these outlaws lived by, their voyages and fierce clashes at sea, the treasure they hunted and the grim ends many of them met at the gallows. Beyond the violence, the book argues that these men and women were early champions of a certain kind of freedom, and that their rebellious habits of organization and defiance left a lasting mark on later generations of smugglers, soldiers of fortune, and revolutionaries.