Global Piracy: A Documentary History of Seaborne Banditry, Paperback

Many people in the western world maintain the contradictory notions that the pirates of old were romantic social bandits while their modern brethren are brutal thugs, thieves, and villains. In Global Piracy, James E. Wadsworth compiles and contextualizes a wealth of primary source documents which illustrate the global phenomenon of piracy through the eyes and voices of those who experienced it: both the pirates or privateers themselves and their victims.

The book allows us to confront our stereotypes by giving us access to "real" pirates in a wide range of historical periods and global regions, from ancient Greece to modern day Nigeria, unfiltered as much as possible by authorial voice or interpretation. Global Piracy seeks neither to romanticize nor vilify pirates, but simply to understand them in the context of their times and the broader world they inhabited. Departing from run-of-the-mill narratives, it selects documents which provide new and fascinating insights into piracy around the globe.

With documents introduced by contextual information, and supplemented by study questions, suggested reading lists, illustrations and maps, this book is an essential companion for anyone studying the history of piracy.

James E. Wadsworth is Professor of History at Stonehill College, USA. He is the author of Agents of Orthodoxy: Honor, Status and the Inquisition in Colonial Pernambuco Brazil (2007), In Defence of the Faith: Joaquim Marques de Araújo, A Brazilian Comissário in the Age of Inquisitional Decline (2013), Columbus and His First Voyage: A History in Documents (2016), and The World of Credit in Colonial Massachusetts: James Richards and His Day Book, 1692-1711 (2017).