Highly illustrated with colour images and specially commissioned maps throughout, this is a unique exploration of the pirate world. Often romanticised in print and on the silver screen, real-life pirates were a brutal menace that plagued the high seas. In this book, Angus Konstam separates myth from reality, tracing the history of piracy through the centuries, from the pirates who plagued the Ancient Egyptians to the Viking raids and on to the era of privateers. He discusses the so-called 'Golden Age of Piracy' and colourful characters such as Blackbeard and Captain Kidd, before examining the West's initial encounters with Eastern pirates off the Chinese coast and the phenomenon of the modern pirate.

Who doesn't love pirates? From Captain Hook to Captain Jack Sparrow, Blackbeard to Black Bart, these pistol-packing, cutlass-flashing, bandana-topped outlaws of the high seas have stirred the imagination for hundreds of years with their adventurous spirit, their love of rum, fighting, plunder, and the way they growl "ARRRR." This richly illustrated book invites readers to cruise the Caribbean and prowl the Spanish Main. Pirates is a colorful and insightful exploration of real-life buccaneers, corsairs and privateers, spirited women pirates, often-overlooked black pirates, and the pirates of screen, from Douglas Fairbanks to Johnny Depp. Find out why they went to sea, how they really lived, fought, ate and died, and which of the stories about eyepatches, peg legs, walking the plank are true. It's a thrilling ride through time and myth that makes you appreciate why a pirate's life for all of us.

A fascinating document and a landmark in the development of the common law. The only English translation of the first book of its kind, enhanced by Professor Seipp's detailed Table of Contents demonstrating the exhaustive scope of the work, followed by his new introductory essay.

With surprising tales of vicious mutineers, imperial riches, and high-seas intrigue, Black Flags, Blue Waters is “rumbustious enough for the adventure-hungry” (Peter Lewis, San Francisco Chronicle). Set against the backdrop of the Age of Exploration, Black Flags, Blue Waters reveals the surprising history of American piracy’s “Golden Age” - spanning the late 1600s through the early 1700s - when lawless pirates plied the coastal waters of North America and beyond. “Deftly blending scholarship and drama” (Richard Zacks), best-selling author Eric Jay Dolin illustrates how American colonists at first supported these outrageous pirates in an early display of solidarity against the Crown, and then violently opposed them. Through engrossing episodes of roguish glamour and extreme brutality, Dolin depicts the star pirates of this period, among them the towering Blackbeard, the ill-fated Captain Kidd, and sadistic Edward Low, who delighted in torturing his prey. Upending popular misconceptions and cartoonish stereotypes, Black Flags, Blue Waters is a “tour de force history” (Michael Pierce, Midwestern Rewind) of the seafaring outlaws whose raids reflect the precarious nature of American colonial life.

With his long black curls, a shadowy family tree, and an affinity for pet spiders, James Matthew bears little resemblance to his starched-collar, blue-blooded peers at Eton. Dubbed King Jas., he stops at nothing to become the most notorious underclassman in the prestigious school's history. For James, sword fighting, falling in love with an Ottoman Sultana, and challenging the Queen of England are all in a day's skullduggery. But when he sets sail on a ship with a mysterious mission, King Jas.' dream of discovering a magical island quickly turns into an unimaginable nightmare. Screenwriter J. V. Hart traces the evolution of J. M. Barrie's classic villain from an eccentric outcast to the scourge of Neverland.

In the second book of the suspense-filled Gentleman Bastard Sequence, hailed by George R. R. Martin as “fresh, original, and engrossing,” Locke Lamora faces a caper so death-defying that nothing short of a miracle will pull it off. For some, only a prize worth dying for makes life worth living. . . . After a brutal battle with the underworld, Locke and his sidekick, Jean, fled to the exotic shores of Tal Verrar to nurse their wounds. But they are soon back to what they do best—stealing from the rich and pocketing the proceeds. Now, however, they have targeted the grandest prize of all: the Sinspire, the world’s most exclusive, most heavily guarded gambling house. But there is one cardinal rule: it is death to cheat at any game. Brazenly undeterred, Locke and Jean have orchestrated an elaborate plan to lie, trick, and swindle their way straight to the Sinspire’s teeming vault. But someone knows the duo’s secret—and has every intention of making them pay for their sins. . . . Don’t miss any of Scott Lynch’s epic fantasy Gentleman Bastard Sequence: THE LIES OF LOCKE LAMORA • RED SEAS UNDER RED SKIES • THE REPUBLIC OF THIEVES

A history of imperial competition, colonial cooperation, and revolutionary currents in the maritime borderlands of the early nineteenth-century Caribbean.