Pirates Aboard

"...Suggests what preventive measures sailors can take and advises how they should deal with stress, aggression, and fear when faced with a confrontation". - Back cover.

During a modern-day United States Coast Guard interdiction of drugs and migrant smugglers in the Gulf of Mexico and Caribbean Sea, two airmen suddenly whirl into an equivalent era to witness piracy during 1816 through 1825 in the West Indies. In the upheaval of law and politics against history's infamous pirates, a twelve-year-old beggar girl stows away on an American merchant ship to seek a better life. Disguised as a boy, she ships out to piratical waters and ends up on several pirate ships. During the passage, she meets an abducted, fourteen-year-old Royal Navy Midshipman trainee, who is unaware of her disguised identity. The stowaway and midshipman find themselves in a conflict and resolve relationship in this swashbuckling historical tale of piracy and its arrest in the West Indies.

The little-known history of the pirates who roamed Maine’s rocky coast and remote islands—and what they left behind . . . Maine has never been regarded as a pirate haven—but only because witnesses were few and far between. With a rugged coast and more than four thousand offshore islands, Maine’s dark waters attracted sea raiders like Dixie Bull from the 1600s through colonial times. Pirate treasure still awaits discovery in Phippsburg and Machias, and pirate deceit prompted a massacre in ancient Fort Loyall. The infamous Captain Kidd may have prowled the waters off Deer Isle, while farther down the coast a woman and a bloodthirsty band of cutthroats lured ships to disaster at Isles of Shoals. In this colorful history featuring reenactment photos and other illustrations, award-winning investigative journalist Greg Latimer separates historical fact from fiction and leads readers on an adventure through the state’s foggy and treacherous past.

Here is a volume devoted exclusively to the buccaneers and pirates who infested the shores, bays, and islands of the Atlantic Coast of North America. This is no collection of Old Wives' Tales, half-myth, half-truth, handed down from year to year with the story more distorted with each telling, nor is it a work of fiction. This book is an accurate account of the most outstanding pirates who ever visited the shores of the Atlantic Coast. These are stories of stark realism. None of the artificial school of sheltered existence is included. Except for the extreme profanity, blasphemy, and obscenity in which most pirates were adept, everything has been included which is essential for the reader to get a true and fair picture of the life of a sea-rover. Bold, daring adventurers, whose deeds are still discussed from the far reaches of North America to the tropical islands of the West Indies, parade through the pages of this volume. There is hardly a square mile of sandy beach from the Avalon Peninsula in Newfoundland to Key West, Florida, which has not felt the imprint of the buccaneer's boot.

The BBC reports that modern day pirates are organized gangs that take people prisoner, steal money, and pilfer expensive goods. Since 1992, approximately 3,583 pirate attacks have taken place, and 340 crew or passengers have been killed. The most dangerous areas for modern piracy are the Malacca Straits, the coast of Somalia, the South China Sea, the coast of Iraq, and the Niger Delta. This book provides thorough and balanced information on modern-day piracy. Its visually appealing presentation and compelling examples provide ample context about the effects and frequency of piracy in the modern era.

Drawing on new research, this fascinating volume looks behind the myths to offer detailed insights into the real lives and activities of pirates—for better or worse—during the golden age of piracy in the Caribbean, from the mid-17th century to 1720. Over the past decade, research in Spanish, French, and Dutch archives, as well as in traditional English repositories, has resulted in a clearer picture of the activities and lives of the pirates who roamed the seas during the "Golden Age of Piracy" from 1650 to 1720. That is the picture shared in Daily Life of Pirates. The book describes how pirates actually lived, touching on their food and drink, their hideouts, and their humor. It also examines their ships, weapons and seamanship, their plunder—and their use of torture. The book's detailed coverage is made possible by newly uncovered interrogations of pirates and by official depositions given by their victims, both of which provide insights that go well beyond simple recountings of famous exploits. The result is a tantalizing, true picture of pirates' daily lives that reveals many surprising facts, such as the reality that most of their time was spent upon land as actual piracy was a seasonal occupation.

“In his lively, vivid history of pirates, Lehr finds some striking continuities from ancient to modern times.” —Foreign Affairs A Choice Outstanding Academic Title of the Year In the twenty-first century, pirates have regained a central place in Western culture, thanks to an odd combination of a blockbuster film franchise and a dramatic rise in piracy around the Horn of Africa. In this global history of the phenomenon, maritime terrorism and piracy expert Peter Lehr casts fresh light on pirates. Ranging from the Vikings and Wako pirates in the Middle Ages to modern-day Somali pirates, Lehr delves deep into what motivates pirates and how they operate. He also illuminates the state’s role in the development of piracy throughout history: from privateers sanctioned by Queen Elizabeth to pirates operating off the coast of Africa taking the law into their own hands. After exploring the structural failures that create fertile ground for pirate activities, Lehr evaluates the success of counter-piracy efforts—and the reasons behind its failures. “Informative and often entertaining . . . Lehr traces the global history of piracy, quoting judiciously from an array of historians and sources to make his case” —The Times “Groundbreaking . . . provides a detailed analysis of the causes of piracy [and] reveals the operations of pirates ignored in most previous histories.” —David Cordingly, author of Under the Black Flag “Policymakers would do well to read it, as would aspiring pirates in search of career advice.” —Financial Times