Pirates, Privateers, and Profits

Pirates, Privateers, and Profits PDF Author: James Gavin Lydon
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 312

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Book Description
"Probably the most important privateering center of the era in North America, and possibly of the British Empire, bustling Colonial New York serves as a microcosm for this scholarly study of the decline of piracy and the enforcement of legality in privateering. ... In the 1690s, the city of New York was a flourishing pirate center. By the mid-[18th-]century, however, only a few of its privateersmen drifted into the dangerous practices of the earlier period. Pirates gave way before governmental control or retired or died. ... History and politics play important roles in this economic examination of the port. Legal aspects of the maritime depredation are thoroughly treated, as pirates and privateersmen elbow merchants and government officials in their quest for loot." -- Book jacket.

Pirates, Privateers, and Profits

Pirates, Privateers, and Profits PDF Author: James Gavin Lydon
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 312

Get Book Here

Book Description
"Probably the most important privateering center of the era in North America, and possibly of the British Empire, bustling Colonial New York serves as a microcosm for this scholarly study of the decline of piracy and the enforcement of legality in privateering. ... In the 1690s, the city of New York was a flourishing pirate center. By the mid-[18th-]century, however, only a few of its privateersmen drifted into the dangerous practices of the earlier period. Pirates gave way before governmental control or retired or died. ... History and politics play important roles in this economic examination of the port. Legal aspects of the maritime depredation are thoroughly treated, as pirates and privateersmen elbow merchants and government officials in their quest for loot." -- Book jacket.

Privateering

Privateering PDF Author: Faye Kert
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 1421417472
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 224

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Book Description
The first book to tell the tale of the War of 1812 from the privateers’ perspective. Winner of the John Lyman Book Award of the North American Society for Oceanic History During the War of 1812, most clashes on the high seas involved privately owned merchant ships, not official naval vessels. Licensed by their home governments and considered key weapons of maritime warfare, these ships were authorized to attack and seize enemy traders. Once the prizes were legally condemned by a prize court, the privateers could sell off ships and cargo and pocket the proceeds. Because only a handful of ship-to-ship engagements occurred between the Royal Navy and the United States Navy, it was really the privateers who fought—and won—the war at sea. In Privateering, Faye M. Kert introduces readers to U.S. and Atlantic Canadian privateers who sailed those skirmishing ships, describing both the rare captains who made money and the more common ones who lost it. Some privateers survived numerous engagements and returned to their pre-war lives; others perished under violent circumstances. Kert demonstrates how the romantic image of pirates and privateers came to obscure the dangerous and bloody reality of private armed warfare. Building on two decades of research, Privateering places the story of private armed warfare within the overall context of the War of 1812. Kert highlights the economic, strategic, social, and political impact of privateering on both sides and explains why its toll on normal shipping helped convince the British that the war had grown too costly. Fascinating, unfamiliar, and full of surprises, this book will appeal to historians and general readers alike.

The Invisible Hook

The Invisible Hook PDF Author: Peter Leeson
Publisher: Princeton University Press
ISBN: 1400829860
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
Pack your cutlass and blunderbuss--it's time to go a-pirating! The Invisible Hook takes readers inside the wily world of late seventeenth- and early eighteenth-century pirates. With swashbuckling irreverence and devilish wit, Peter Leeson uncovers the hidden economics behind pirates' notorious, entertaining, and sometimes downright shocking behavior. Why did pirates fly flags of Skull & Bones? Why did they create a "pirate code"? Were pirates really ferocious madmen? And what made them so successful? The Invisible Hook uses economics to examine these and other infamous aspects of piracy. Leeson argues that the pirate customs we know and love resulted from pirates responding rationally to prevailing economic conditions in the pursuit of profits. The Invisible Hook looks at legendary pirate captains like Blackbeard, Black Bart Roberts, and Calico Jack Rackam, and shows how pirates' search for plunder led them to pioneer remarkable and forward-thinking practices. Pirates understood the advantages of constitutional democracy--a model they adopted more than fifty years before the United States did so. Pirates also initiated an early system of workers' compensation, regulated drinking and smoking, and in some cases practiced racial tolerance and equality. Leeson contends that pirates exemplified the virtues of vice--their self-seeking interests generated socially desirable effects and their greedy criminality secured social order. Pirates proved that anarchy could be organized. Revealing the democratic and economic forces propelling history's most colorful criminals, The Invisible Hook establishes pirates' trailblazing relevance to the contemporary world.

Villains of All Nations

Villains of All Nations PDF Author: Marcus Rediker
Publisher: Verso Books
ISBN: 1789601967
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 275

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Book Description
Pirates have long been stock figures in popular culture, from Treasure Island to the more recent antics of Jack Sparrow. Villains of all Nations unearths the thrilling historical truth behind such fictional characters and rediscovers their radical democratic challenge to the established powers of the day.

Empire of Blue Water

Empire of Blue Water PDF Author: Stephan Talty
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 0307382753
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 354

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Book Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “Talty’s vigorous history of seventeenth-century pirates of the Caribbean [is] a pleasure to read from bow to stern.”—Entertainment Weekly “In Stephan Talty’s hands, the brilliant Captain Morgan, wicked and cutthroat though he was, proves an irresistible hero. . . . A thrilling and fascinating adventure.”—Caroline Alexander, author of The Endurance and The Bounty The passion and violence of the age of exploration and empire come to vivid life in this story of the legendary pirate who took on the greatest military power on earth with a ragtag bunch of renegades. Awash with bloody battles, political intrigues, natural disaster, and a cast of characters more compelling, bizarre, and memorable than any found in a Hollywood swashbuckler, Empire of Blue Water brilliantly re-creates the life and times of Henry Morgan and the real pirates of the Caribbean.

Pirates and Privateers

Pirates and Privateers PDF Author: David John Starkey
Publisher: Liverpool University Press
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 290

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Book Description
Those travelling on the seas have always been vulnerable to the attacks of predators acting within or without the law. In the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries such assaults reached new heights as the development of trans-oceanic empires increased massively the wealth and extent of sea-borne trade, and with it the potential for prize-taking.Pirates and Privateers focuses on the character of pirate communities in the Caribbean, the East Indies and China, and on the scale and significance of privateering operations based in the principal European maritime states. It brings together the latest work of an internationally renowned group of scholars to shed fresh light on the fascinating, frequently misunderstood subject of violence at sea in the age of sail.

The Pirate Organization

The Pirate Organization PDF Author: Rodolphe Durand
Publisher: Harvard Business Press
ISBN: 1422183181
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 210

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Book Description
In this book, Whole Foods Market cofounder John Mackey and professor and Conscious Capitalism, Inc. co-founder Raj Sisodia argue for the inherent good of both business and capitalism. Featuring some of today's best-known companies, they illustrate how these two forces can--and do--work most powerfully to create value for all stakeholders: including customers, employees, suppliers, investors, society, and the environment.

A General History of The Pyrates

A General History of The Pyrates PDF Author: Daniel Defoe
Publisher: Lindhardt og Ringhof
ISBN: 8728119002
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 304

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Book Description
‘A General History of the Pyrates’ is a captivating account of some of history’s most notorious pirates. The author, writing as Captain Charles Johnson, blends fiction and non-fiction to provide readers with a most entertaining version of these iconic heroes and villains. This book was a massive success upon its first release due to its adventurous stories filled with danger and treasure and its influence lives on to this day as it shaped the modern view of pirates. Some of the best accounts in the book are of the infamous Blackbeard and the trailblazing female pirates Anne Bonny and Mary Read. ‘A General History of the Pyrates’ is the definitive story of the golden age of piracy and should be read by fans of books such as ‘Treasure Island’ and movies such as ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’. Daniel Defoe (1660 – 1731) is one of the most important authors in the English language. Defoe was one of the original English novelists and greatly helped to popularise the form. Defoe was highly prolific and is believed to have written over 300 works ranging from novels to political pamphlets. He was highly celebrated but also controversial as his writings influenced politicians but also led to Defoe being imprisoned. Defoe’s novels have been translated into many languages and are still read across the globe to this day. Some of his most famous books include ‘Moll Flanders’ and ‘Robinson Crusoe’ which was adapted into a movie starring Pierce Brosnan and Damian Lewis in 1997. Defoe’s influence on English novels cannot be understated and his legacy lives on to this day.

British Pirates and Society, 1680-1730

British Pirates and Society, 1680-1730 PDF Author: Dr Margarette Lincoln
Publisher: Ashgate Publishing, Ltd.
ISBN: 1472429958
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 429

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Book Description
This book shows how pirates were portrayed in their own time, in trial reports, popular prints, novels, legal documents, sermons, ballads and newspaper accounts. It examines how attitudes towards them changed with Britain’s growing imperial power, exploring the interface between political ambition and personal greed, between civil liberties and the power of the state. It throws light on contemporary ideals of leadership and masculinity - some pirate voyages qualifying as feats of seamanship and endurance. Unusually, it also gives insights into the domestic life of pirates and investigates the experiences of women whose husbands turned pirate or were captured for piracy. Pirate voyages contributed to British understanding of trans-oceanic navigation, patterns of trade and different peoples in remote parts of the world. This knowledge advanced imperial expansion and British control of trade routes, which helps to explain why contemporary attitudes towards piracy were often ambivalent. This is an engaging study of vested interests and conflicting ideologies. It offers comparisons with our experience of piracy today and shows how the historic representation of pirate behaviour can illuminate other modern preoccupations, including gang culture.

Buccaneers of the Caribbean

Buccaneers of the Caribbean PDF Author: Jon Latimer
Publisher: Harvard University Press
ISBN: 0674034031
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 353

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Book Description
During the seventeenth century, sea raiders known as buccaneers controlled the Caribbean. Buccaneers were not pirates but privateers, licensed to attack the Spanish by the governments of England, France, and Holland. Jon Latimer charts the exploits of these men who followed few rules as they forged new empires. Lacking effective naval power, the English, French, and Dutch developed privateering as the means of protecting their young New World colonies. They developed a form of semi-legal private warfare, often carried out regardless of political developments on the other side of the Atlantic, but usually with tacit approval from London, Paris, and Amsterdam. Drawing on letters, diaries, and memoirs of such figures as William Dampier, Sieur Raveneau de Lussan, Alexander Oliver Exquemelin, and Basil Ringrose, Jon Latimer portrays a world of madcap adventurers, daredevil seafarers, and dangerous rogues. Piet Hein of the Dutch West India Company captured, off the coast of Cuba, the Spanish treasure fleet, laden with American silver, and funded the Dutch for eight months in their fight against Spain. The switch from tobacco to sugar transformed the Caribbean, and everyone scrambled for a quick profit in the slave trade. Oliver Cromwell’s ludicrous Western Design—a grand scheme to conquer Central America—fizzled spectacularly, while the surprising prosperity of Jamaica set England solidly on the road to empire. The infamous Henry Morgan conducted a dramatic raid through the tropical jungle of Panama that ended in the burning of Panama City. From the crash of gunfire to the billowing sail on the horizon, Latimer brilliantly evokes the dramatic age of the buccaneers.