The Golden Age of Piracy: The Rise, Fall, and Enduring Popularity of Pirates - Hardcover

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0820353264 ISBN 13: 9780820353265

Publisher: University of Georgia Press, 2018

Synopsis

Shrouded by myth and hidden by Hollywood, the real pirates of the Caribbean come to life in this collection of essays edited by David Head. Twelve scholars of piracy show why pirates thrived in the New World seas of seventeenth- and eighteenth-century empires, how pirates operated their plundering ventures, how governments battled piracy, and when and why piracy declined. The essays presented take the study of piracy, which can easily lapse into rousing, romanticized stories, to new heights of rigor and insight.

The Golden Age of Piracy also delves into the enduring status of pirates as pop culture icons. Audiences have devoured stories about cutthroats such as Blackbeard and Henry Morgan from the time that pirates sailed the sea. By looking at the ideas of gender and sexuality surrounding pirate stories, the fad for hunting pirate treasure, and the construction of pirate myths, the book’s contributors tell a new story about the dangerous men, and a few dangerous women, who terrorized the high seas.

Contributors: Douglas R. Burgess, Guy Chet, John A. Coakley, Carolyn Eastman, Adam Jortner, Peter T. Leeson, Margarette Lincoln, Virginia W. Lunsford, Kevin P. McDonald, Carla Gardina Pestana, Matthew Taylor Raffety, and David Wilson.

About this title

About the Author

DAVID HEAD is a lecturer of history at the University of Central Florida and the author of Privateers of the Americas: Spanish American Privateering from the United States in the Early Republic (Georgia).

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Georgia Press
• Publication date: 2018
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0820353264
• ISBN 13: 9780820353265
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 264
• Editor: Head David C.