Pirates, Dictators, and Longing for Security

Whenever I’m in the Mediterranean I’m reminded of the rich lore of piracy. In the popular imagination, piracy is associated with the Golden Age of Piracy in the New World between about 1650-1726. The genesis of the public’s fascination with pirates was the 1883 publication of Treasure Island, by Robert Lewis Stevenson, which has inspired dozens of books and films, most recently the Pirates of the Caribbean. Johnny Depp’s portrayal of Captain Jack Sparrow may explain why, in a recent survey, wome...