...
Show More
This is the most wide-ranging study of piracy I've read, starting in the 13th century BC and ending in modern times, and the illustrations and maps are beautiful. I especially liked the reproductions of contemporary woodcuts and the inclusion of paintings by Howard Pyle. It's a mostly chronological study and very readable, with the exception of the section on the Golden Age of piracy, which is mostly just a string of mini-biographies with little context for how those men interacted. The first chapter is all about the history of the pirate ship, from the earliest galleys to the speedboats of the modern day, and that was particularly interesting. It's a great overview, I think, very interesting, but not as useful for my purposes because there are neither endnotes nor bibliography. I'm not going to mark it down for lack of endnotes, because it's not that sort of book, but I always like to see a list of suggestions for further reading, and I see no reason why that shouldn't have been included, especially given the author's vast list of qualifications to write this.
