Given this was a 18th century text this wasn't the easiest of reads.
It was of interest but to be honest is maybe best read in sections not from front to back as I did as it can be a dry read which does its best to inform a audience who where likely not aware of the flora and fauna of areas beyond their own so there's much on coconuts etc which can break up the narrative.
That said there's little in narrative I guess as it's a succession of pirates stealing and burning ships etc and that's kind of where it became tiresome for me when reading one after another.
It's well informed however..well it seems so..but in that way its very much a scholary text.

Attributed to Daniel Defoe of Robinson Crusoe fame, n  A General History of Pyratesn is the go-to book used by many authors of pirate lore. Written for an English audience in 1724 at the end of the golden age of piracy. It has the ring of authenticity of someone well-acquainted with pirates. It is not regarded as being altogether truthful. The author is the Suetonius of English pirates.

I have a mild case of Gay Pirate Brain Rot (aka being a fan of Our Flag Means Death) so I thought I’d ease the pain of waiting for HBO to renew it by going to the source. Until I read some commentary I 100% did not believe that n  Stede Bonnet, The Gentleman Piraten was an actual real person. I mean, that name! Come on. But nope, he was not invented for the show, though the campy name influenced the fictional characterization.
I’d love to say that this book gives us some details of the wild adventures of Stede and Blackbeard and their contemporaries, but this book is DRY. It’s more like a forensic accounting of the ships and goods that were taken, and where, and when. It’s a lot of lists.
It started out promising though, because the author has a very very dry wit as well and some of the early book is straight up hilarious (in a disdainful Dowager Countess way). Alas, over the course of this very, very, very long book the humor either ran out or I became too exhausted by the archaic language to notice it.
It became a slog not only because of the language, but because guess what? Pirates were not fun! And the people they were robbing were horrible too! Raping and slaving…. Not exactly a light fun read. But the book makes it very clear that the pirates and the merchants/sailors are the same. Pirates are just self-employed… the rest work for the East India Company or the Crown.
There was one bright section to the book -the stories of Mary Reade and Anne Bonny are short but very entertaining. And the author apologies for that! Says he knows it reads like a novel but he swears it’s true. LOL. So that gives you an idea of how deliberately dull most of this is. It can be a painful slog but it was weirdly interesting.

This was just not for me.

And honestly, that's my own fault. I should have looked into it more. I wanted a book that would give me nice life descriptions of some of the more famous pirates back in the day, because I'm genuinely interested in that sort of thing and I was hoping for something that's more exciting to read than a Wikipedia page. Some cool side info on piracy in general was also a nice addition!

Unfortunately the "general history of the pyrates" is a bit too... general for me. It had more to do with who took whose ships and what was on that ships, or just geography information that went on for pages at a time. The worst part for me is that it was all in very classic and dated English, and as someone whose first language isn't English, it was very hard to get through.

The only worthwhile chapters for me were Mary Read's and Anne Bonny's, as those went more into their personal lives, as well as parts of Edward Low's chapter.

So.. would not recommend. It would have already made a huge difference for me if only the language was a bit more modern. So I think a modern version of this book, that sort of seeks to tell the same things, would work better.

"Captain Charles Johnson"

Such a day, rum all out - our company somewhat sober, a damnedd confusion amongst us! Rogues a plotting - great talk of separation. So I looked sharp for a prize - such a day took one, with a great deal of liquor on board; so kept the company hot, damnedd hot, then all things went well again.
- Edward "Blackbeard" Teach

First published in 1724, this book was an instant smash hit. Numerous editions followed, jam packed with lurid tales of murder, robbery, riches beyond measure and barbarism. Virtually any pirate story you have read or seen has details gleaned from this book. The dead man's chest, pirate brotherhood and code of conduct, Blackbeard, Mistress Anne Bonney, pirates and captains being buried at sea in their fine red overcoats and diamond jewelry are all here. The really amazing bit, though, is that these stories appear to be true.

At its publication, and for centuries after, readers assumed they were the works of overheated imagination. However, through careful searches of records, historians have found the credible evidence in newspaper, letters and court documents to verify most of the stories in this book.

The only real mystery left, is who "Captain Charles Johnson" was. No records of the time indicate a captain of the name. Various theories pin the writing on authors and playwrights of the time - including Daniel Defoe - though this theory has been disproven.

The writing style itself is oddly uneven. The bulk of the text is a unemotional account of the deeds of the pirates, recounted in a legalistic manner - backed by numerous quotes from court records and newspaper accounts of the trials. However, it is clear that the author is no stranger to the sea. Occasional comments like pirates who had been pardoned by the king soon returning to their old ways like "dogs returning to vomit" add a certain colorfulness to the narratives.

Occasionally, the author will break of mid-description to give a short history of an Island or coast that the pirates inhabited. These 2-3 page commentaries give a description of the vegetation, peoples, animals and weather equal to any 8th grade geography report. The language is a bit rough going in places, but read an account or two of your favorite villains just for fun.

Brutal

This involved a lot of skim reading and the only thing I *really* cared about was the Anne Bonny & Mary Read content.

an interesting read but it did get kind of tedious by the end

this a good book you read about how things were at the time lot and it has some funny parts

A rather life-changing book for me. After I watched Muppets Treasure Island for the first time, I knew that I had to know everything about pirates. "Learn something about everything, and everything about something" as they say. Well, pirates are my everything, and this was the first book that I got my hands on. It helped further my burgeoning obsession by giving me a basis for my knowledge. Part lore, part fact, you cant help but be absorbed by it.

It's wonderful to read a contemporary account of the Golden Age of Piracy. The wording and terminology I struggled with throughout, but I still got a lot out of it. Many of the worst pirate captains I had never heard of before. This is a wonderful, and balanced, account of events.

A brilliant, yet flawed book. Charles Johnson set out to write a book about how pirates were evil wretches deserving of universal condemnation. Unfortunately for him, he had no idea of the concept of "bad ass" - he made pirates sound *awesome*.

The first part of the book, a summary of piratical antics of antiquity, is brilliantly gripping reading. I laughed out loud a few times at some of the stories of terrible pre-Roman Empire pirates. It wasn't meant to be funny, but the pirates themselves had wit and character.

The next part of the book tells the stories of various major pirates who everyone has at least heard of. It's great reading, and almost makes one want to have lived in the golden age of sail just so one could turn robber on the high seas. The Lost Pirate Kings of Madagascar was a particularly memorable tale, as were the two women-disguised-as-men who met on the high seas.

The second half of the book... drags. The very long story of the Historical Dread Pirate Roberts (not a franchise, just one bloke from Wales) is the turning point - the story is great, but Johnson wants you to understand that being a pirate is _bad_, so there's a very long and dragged out telling of the final fate of everybody involved in the piratical enterprise. The court speeches were interesting; the long lists of names and places of birth less so.

After Roberts, there's nothing really new to tell. Every pirate starts out by stealing _a_ ship, then _several more_ ships. They loot, plunder, fight, and then either try to get a pardon or are arrested.

I recommend this book, but with caveats. I'm very glad that it exists and that I read it. We are incredibly lucky that this record of piracy exists, although it could really use a modern, and harsh, edit. I would say that if you were to read this, you should feel free to skip ahead when you get a bit bored.

A couple of notes that don't really fit into my review elsewhere:
- The discussion of why people turned to piracy was very interesting - folks were shipped out to - I want to say Canada? A fishery and processing plant, anyway. They were poorly paid and forced to spent most of their wages in the limited and expensive company shops. Unsurprisingly, this borderline-indentured servitude lead to many turning pirate.
- Piracy as democracy was an interesting management lesson. Each ship was its own Commonwealth, with every man having a vote. The captain was chosen by the crew, and none felt any need to obey him. Interesting. There's something to learn from that.