Piracy in the Early Modern Era: An Anthology of Sources

by Kris E Lane (Editor), Arne Bialuschewski (Contributor)

"This volume represents a sea change in educational resources for the history of piracy. In a single, readable, and affordable volume, Lane and Bialuschewski present a wonderfully diverse body of primary texts on sea raiders. Drawn from a variety of sources, including the authors' own archival research and translations, these carefully curated texts cover over two hundred years (1548–1726) of global, early-modern piracy. Lane and Bialuschewski provide glosses of each document and a succinct introduction to the historical context of the period and avoid the romanticized and Anglo-centric depictions of maritime predation that often plague work on the topic."
—Jesse Cromwell, The University of Mississippi
 

Genres: Pirates, Nonfiction

200 pages, Paperback

Published November 15, 2019

Reviews

[Jindřich Zapletal · Rating 4 out of 5]

A standard format textbook for a US university reading course. You get a number of selected original documents from perpetrators, victims, or bystanders of various piratical adventures around the globe in early modern era. There is a decent bibliography, questions for discussion, and some fairly minimalistic editorial comments. It all serves to demystify and deromanticize early modern piracy, which is a worthy goal.

If you read it on your own, you will need a fairly good grasp of global political geography of the age of sail, since the editor does not pause to give an outline of it. History of the Caribbean is a bare minimum, but some of the more interesting examples take place far away from the Carribean. The notorious far eastern piracy of the era gets only one item on the table of contents, which is a great pity.

[Sally · Rating 4 out of 5]

Interesting compilation of sources! Cool to read in comparison with Kris Lane's "Pillaging the Empire."