True Crime And Punishment Mutinies

Mutiny is an act of open revolt by those expected to serve without question, by those working in the most disciplined and demanding of conditions, in the crews of ships, both naval and privately owned. Mutiny on the High Seas examines the circumstances that have driven sailors (and officers) to reject or betray their code, to overthrow authority, to commit extreme and lethal acts of insubordination. Each episode discusses the people who provoked the mutiny (including brutal commanders; poor living conditions; poor pay; untrained and unwilling men; the occasional psychopath), how the mutiny was quelled, the fate of the mutineers, and whether the mutiny achieved any broader institutional, political or social change. The stories range from the mutiny against circumnavigator Ferdinand Magellan in 1520, to the 1797 mutiny of the British Fleet, through to the 1975 Storozhevoy mutiny led by an officer of a Soviet antisubmarine frigate to protest the corruption of the Brezhnev regime.

What drives men at sea to commit mutiny.to murderously rebel against superior officers and risk their own lives?

Covering all manner of robberies, from the sack of a city (Panama in 1671), the attempt in 1876 to steal Abraham Lincoln's body and hold it for ransom, to traditional tales of train robberies and audacious bank heists, Heists is a collection of amazing crime stories. Beginning with the story of Henry Morgan, a charismatic Welshman who in the 1650s set out from England to the New World and over the next 20 years plundered the Caribbean, Heists takes in more than 300 years of bold attempts to run off with the loot. Some robberies netted a miserly amount - their efforts were hardly worth it when Jesse James and his bandits left Minnesota's First National Bank with a paltry $26.70 - while others were ambitious and well rewarded; Lee Murray and his gang left with a 'Thank you for the cooperation!' and a cool £53 million after the Securitas Robbery in 2006 in Tonbridge. Sometimes it paid to risk everything for the 'tickle' - English slang for that big score that would provide an easy life and early retirement. Other titles in this series: Mutinies Spy Stories Imposters Under Siege Prison Islands

The naval mutinies of 1797 were unprecedented in scale and impressive in their level of organisation. This volume focuses on new research, re-evaluating the causes and events which led to the seamen's revolts.